


Kiss The Girl

by Jillypups



Series: Kiss the Girl [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Beast mode daddy!Sandor, Bronnaery, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, RST, Romance, Starks all up in this joint, Tale as Old as Time, UST, Uncle Sandor, burn as slow as fuck, here we go again, i blame tumblr okay, i can't even help myself at this point, oh i almost forgot, sansan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 129,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/101905467073/kiss-the-girl-sandor-clegane-is-not-a-social">Inspiration here</a>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sandor Clegane is not a social man. He tends the land of Sonoita, AZ and he is blissfully left alone. But when he finds he’s the last remaining family for his suddenly orphaned niece, his bubble of isolation is burst. Special services suggest he find an au pair.</p><p>Sansa Stark is finished with the north; with its wet, drizzly winters, its cruelty and the ill reputation it has left her. Sansa’s friends Jeyne and Myranda all found luxurious au pair positions in New York and in Copenhagen, but all she can find, and at such short notice, is a position in some dusty, high desert town called Sonoita. </p><p>Some stuff:</p><p>Sansa is 23.<br/>Sandor is 36.<br/>Genna is pronounced like Jenna. :)<br/>ALSO I have never written grumpy grouchy mean Sandor SO GO EASY ON ME. I am far more used to sadbear!Sandor.<br/>Bexmorealli and Littleimagination are awesome and major supporters and advisers for this fic.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperflowercrowns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperflowercrowns/gifts), [vanillacoconuts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillacoconuts/gifts).



> Here are some picsets to show you what Sonoita looks like!
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> [one](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102822221303)
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> [two](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102854815108/i-know-its-just-a-long-stretch-of-plains-but-its)
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> [three!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102837400773)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Characters we'll see in this story. Renly, Loras, Brienne, Jaime, Sandor, Sansa, Genna, Margie and Bronn, Barristan and Olenna, Willas and Podrick.](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/102824181008/jillypups-bex-morealli-characters-for-kiss-the)
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> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102252891908/dear-everyone-i-cant-help-myself-with-kiss-the)
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> [Another!](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/101991432103/jillypups-bex-morealli-for-jillypups-kiss-the)
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> [Sandor's house](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102023253143/i-know-im-a-complete-nerd-but-i-love-doing-house)

“Genna. Genna, I said- _Ow!_ ” Sandor grits his teeth and closes his eyes as his four year old niece tugs another sheaf of hair out of his ponytail. He sighs. They’ve been waiting here at Tucson International for over thirty minutes for this goddamned plane, and it’s late, and he’s not surprised, because when has his life ever gone as planned?

“But I wear my hair down so daddy should too,” she says, plucking another strand of hair free, and without opening his eyes his hand darts up, closing loosely around her soft little wrist. How something so delicate and sweet came from his brother, he will never know.

“I’m not your dad, Genna, okay? It’s been four months, and you know I’m your uncle. Call me uncle. Uncle Sandor, okay?” He tries to be gentle because she’s just a fucking kid, but by God, she tries him. The last thing he wants, the last thing he needs, is Gregor’s daughter mistaking him for _him,_ not that she ever knew him.

“Okay, daddy Sandor,” she chimes, climbing up on the seat next to his, and Sandor _oofs_ when she slings her leg over his back. He’s strong but he’s been digging holes for his neighbor all day, and though she maybe weighs thirty five pounds, when she climbs up on his shoulders he’s wincing.

“ _Uncle_ ,” he grits out, silently adding the _goddammit motherfucker I already told you oh Christ my fucking back would you just please get the fuck off of-_

There is an announcement coming through on the speakers overhead declaring his new nanny’s plane has arrived, and Sandor stands with a  grunt, hefting Genna up on his shoulders. While he is relieved the wait is over, is happy he will finally have help with his niece, there is the old familiar dread building up inside him. _Here it comes. The tattoos. The dirt. The scars._ He will scare her, whoever the hell this Sansa Stark is. Hell, Gayle at CPS basically warned him of it, as gently as she could in her gray slacks and her saggy blouse, with her watery eyes that said _Hey, you’ll do. You’re better than most, and I get off in forty minutes, so there’s the door._

He feels like an idiot or maybe  a chauffeur, holding up the hand written sign that says STARK on it, but not so lonely as he usually does, thanks to the sticky, chubby legs on either side of his neck. She’s still yanking on his hair and giving him a headache, and he knows he will look all the wilder, all the crazier for this new hairdo Genna’s giving him, but at least he’s not alone. She’s messed up his house, has left every door open known to man and now he can’t seem to get rid of the lizards in his kitchen, she wakes him up crying almost every night, but she’s there. He doesn’t know what the fuck to do with her, but she’s there. He’s there. They’re there, together.

“Goddammit, Genna, I said that _hurts,_ ” he grunts after another tug, and when a couple standing next to him gives him a dirty look, he mouths _Fuck you_ to them. They blanche and look stonily to the floor.

Genna just laughs.                                                              

 

She’s not even out of the airport but the gust of hot, dry air that hits her when she steps from plane to ramp is enough to take her breath away. There were so many thoughts going through her mind on the flight down here, having looked at google images of Sonoita, but the heat was not on her mind, never, not after photo after photo of high blonde grasses and vineyards, not after pie in the sky ideas of wearing long cotton skirts and brushing her hand against the ripe vines or hiking through the scrubby landscape at dawn. She knows it’s cooler in Sonoita than here in Tucson, but this heat has her worried that the website was wrong.

It’s nothing like Washington, and by the time she’s wheeled her little carryon towards the baggage area she’s already shrugging out of her hoodie and slinging it over her purse, even though it’s only March. Sansa glances around her at the people herding alongside her towards baggage claim, and suddenly it strikes her how very far from home she is, how utterly alone she is. She did her college routine, much to her eventual distaste, but it was still a school close to home where all of her family lived; there is absolutely no one here for her now, but her. _Well, there’s Genna,_ she thinks, lacing on a brave smile as she shoves the pull handle of her suitcase down and picks it up before stepping onto the escalator. _Genna needs me, and poor girl, I need her too_.

It was a nighttime flight, the one she hopped on from Seattle to Denver and on to here, and even though it’s a Wednesday night Sansa is surprised at how few people are waiting for their loved ones. Even though she’ll be living in Sonoita she did research Tucson, and it has over half a million people; there are only about a dozen folks waiting for her fellow passengers, and she can see their feet as she slowly inches downward on the escalator. _Whose feet are my new boss’s?_ _Where are little Genna’s?_

She sees flip flops and work boots and tennis shoes, then legs, before she sees the STARK sign, and she breathes a sigh of relief because even though she’s almost twenty four she’s still never traveled to places where no one was waiting for her. Sansa sees that sign and makes a beeline for it, noting the big arms and the broad shoulders, the adorable little black haired girl _on_ those shoulders before she registers the face of her new employer. He’s tall and he’s dark and he’d be handsome if he wasn’t so formidably scary looking. _Scars, scars, scars,_ is all she can think, despite that adorable little girl on his back with her fingers in his wild hair. But she’s nothing if not polite, so she marches up to him with her hand outstretched, and then she feels stupid because his hands are curled around the little ankles on either side of his neck, and he makes no move to shake her hand.

“Hi, I’m Sansa Scars,” she says with her hand still outstretched, and then she sucks in a mortified, desperate gasp as her eyes lift from sign all the way to little girl, and then they settle on his face. “Oh my God, I mean, Stark. Sansa _Stark,_ ” she practically shouts, sweating alike now from both the hot air and the horrible, horrible first impression she’s just made. _You used to be better than this,_ she thinks with a shake of her head. She drops her unshaken hand.

“Nice recovery,” her new employer scowls, and his voice is low and gruff as if he doesn’t speak enough to break it in fully.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and he is strong enough to shrug even with a four year old on his shoulders. Sandor Clegane folds the STARK sign into quarters and turns on his heel towards the baggage carousels. Her gaze lingers on the trash can he chucks it into, and she wonders if it’s an apt metaphor for this rash decision to answer an ad and fly down the length of the county.

“If you think you’re the first person to get that horrified look on your face, you’re fooling yourself,” he says over his shoulder, and though she’s long legged she is forced to hustle to keep up with him. “This is Genna, by the way. Genna, this is Sansa, she’s the lady we’ve been talking about,” he says by way of introduction, and the little girl smiles shyly down at her.

“Hi Genna,” Sansa says, relieved for a distraction from her awful Freudian slip moments ago, and when she stretches out her hand to shake Genna’s, she is delighted to feel the warm little hand tuck inside hers. They shake enthusiastically, and she’s reminded of Rickon when he was this age. She smiles brightly and the little girl’s smile widens in a mirror of Sansa’s expression, and the jangle of nerves from her and Sandor’s initial meeting starts to disentangle and smooth out.

They stand in silence as they wait for the carousel to groan to life, or at least, she and Sandor do, but she and Genna are instant friends, and Sansa’s heart is warmed as the child tells her about her stuffed animals at home and all of her favorite episode of Daniel Tiger. Her uncle snorts below her.

“If the one thing you do is get her to stop watching that damned show I’ll be a happy man,” he grunts, and it makes Sansa smile. She hazards a glance at him and here on his right side it’s not a daunting task at all, far from it. He stares straight ahead and because of this it’s easy to imagine that there are no scars all over the left side; he’s bearded and tanned from working outdoors ( _I work in landscaping and am gone from dawn til dusk,_ his email had said), and his hair is in a wreck of a ponytail thanks to Genna, half of it hanging long and black in his eyes, and aside from a few flinches he is all stony silence even as she continues to tug on it. Sansa is reminded of the shows on lions she’s watched on PBS, lounging in the shade as their cubs crawl all over them, all tooth and claw and play.

There is a clank and a shudder as the bags start spitting out from the mysterious hole in the wall; she always wondered as a kid what it was like back there, making her think of Santa’s elves and little magical workshops, though know she knows it’s more likely that an employee has gone through her stuff, and when she finally sees her huge slate gray suitcase with the brightly colored scarf tied on the handle dump unceremoniously onto the metal belt she steps forward.

“That’s me,” she says, and before she’s taken two steps forward she feels a calloused, dry palm on her shoulder.

“Here, I’ll get it,” he says with his rough voice, and Sansa stares as he walks away from her, his niece’s tumble of dark curls bouncing with his heavy footfalls . Genna shrieks with glee when he leans over to pull the suitcase off the belt, and with a jerk he’s got the enormous thing in hand. Sansa knows how heavy it is, but he makes no grimace or grunt of effort when he sets it down at her feet.

“Thank you,” she says, risking a look up in his face. _God, they’re really awful,_ she thinks, fixating on the pebbling and roping of scars, but when she finally lifts her gaze to his eyes, which are gray, she can tell now, she can see the ill-concealed anger there, and once more she’s mortified at her crass behavior.

“Go ahead, get it out of your system,” he growls at her. “Take a nice long, hard look at them, because they’re not going anywhere, so you might as well get yourself acquainted,” he says, and God he’s a menace, even with two little ankles in his hands and two adorable little fists in his hair.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare,” she says, her heart pounding, because this is the man she works for now, this is the man she’s going to be sharing a roof with, and it’s evident she’s insulted him twice now for something he cannot help. Suddenly the scars take on a sad look instead of a scary one, and she wonders if anyone has comforted him over them.

“Nobody means to but that doesn’t mean they don’t,” he says as he turns away from her. “Come on, let’s go, we’ve got an hour long drive from here and I still need to get some McDonald’s for her dinner,” he says, and Genna screeches _Chicken nuggets_ in his ear, and _that_ makes this hulk of a man flinch.

 

The two girls chatter and chitter back and forth for the first half of the car ride, sounding like girlish, dulcet toned squirrels, and their voices are pleasant enough, though nonstop, that Sandor is able to peacefully tune them out. The car smells like fast food and his stomach growls off and on even though he had a big mac and a large fry; he forgets to eat in the middle of the day, and it’s moments like this he pays for it. _I gotta remember to bring lunch,_ he thinks, _Bronn always does,_ but then, Bronn has Margaery who dotes on him like he’s some sort of baby deer instead of a big dumb oaf like him.

The sudden silence brings him out of his thoughts when he realizes the two of them aren’t prattling on about Disney princesses and their favorite colors anymore, and he glances over to Sansa who sits up front with him in his four door Silverado. She looks over at him, is on him the moment he turns his head and he thinks she’s probably nervous because most people are around him.

“She’s asleep,” she murmurs, tipping her head towards Genna’s booster seat in the middle of the backseat, and sure enough when he stretches up and looks in the rearview he can just make out the crescent of her round little cheek as her head slumps against the side of her headrest.

“Figure she would, she’s been up since five with me,” he says, and when he looks back at Sansa before pinning his eyes back to the road she’s staring at him incredulously. “What? What’s that look?”

“But she’s only four,” she says with flare of indignation, as if he were torturing the girl instead of waking her up to go to daycare before pre-K. _Pre-K,_ he thinks. _Jesus, I never thought I would know what the hell words like pre-K even mean._ “It’s past nine pm, Mr. Clegane,” she says, and he rolls his eyes.

“You’re the one who booked the evening flight,” he bites back. “I work all day, okay? I have to get her up before I go to work. Shit like this, bedtimes and all that other crap, why the fuck do you think I hired you?” Another glance her way and he sees a wound there from his words, and he sighs testily. _Women are too goddamned sensitive._

“I know why you hired me and it’s clear you need me, _believe_ me,” she says, a little nip to her voice, and Sandor snorts with approval, though he makes no reply. _Good, maybe you’ve got teeth after all. You need them out here._ His stomach growls again and she actually laughs. “Here, I didn’t eat most of my fries,” she says, leaning forward as she rummages through her bag of McDonald’s, and when he looks over he sees her tank top has ridden up her back, and he can see a sliver of pale skin. He suppresses a sigh, maybe a groan, because it’s been that long since he’s been with a woman, and now he’ll be living with one of the most beautiful girls he’s ever seen; all that red hair, and eyes bluer than a spring sky. He thought he’d was going to have a heart attack when she approached him in the airport, but then she saw his face, and that ended that.

“Thanks,” he says begrudgingly when she rights herself and hands over her fries, still lukewarm. He keeps his eyes on the road and their fingers brush when she nestles the carton of fries in his hand. Sandor clenches his jaw at the touch.

“No problem. Payback for getting my bag for me,” she says with a smile.

“Yeah, what’d you pack in that thing, cement blocks?” he says around a mouthful of fries, because it humored him, when he lifted it off the baggage carousel, to imagine a wisp of a woman like her hauling that thing to the airport.

“My entire life is in that bag, basically,” she says, and there’s some sadness in the softness of her voice; he’s good at picking up on that sort of shit because little else resides in his heart aside from sorrow and anger, though there is something else beginning to grow there, in the shape of a four year old with almond gray eyes and a cherubic smile ready for him no matter how often he gripes at her.

“I uh, I guess up and moving like that is pretty intense, huh,” he says uncomfortably because this is starting to feel an awful lot like they’re going to try and get to know each other, and all he wants is someone to help him keep Genna from growing up into a horrible brat, or worse, someone like Gregor. The thought terrifies him.

“It is, yeah,” she says quietly, gazing out the passenger window. They’re off the interstate now, and he wishes she could see more than inky black outlines of shrubs and scrubby trees against the star-scattered sky because he loves the terrain out here, before they actually reach Sonoita where the elevation makes it more of a grassland than desert. “But it’s nice to have an opportunity for a change, right?” she says, injecting her voice with cheeriness which Sandor recognizes as fake, and the falsity of it irritates him.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says, polishing off her fries, and it’s a temporary fix but a much needed one, and he washes down the grease and salt with a long pull from his soda. “I’ve lived here my entire life.”

“Really! I lived up in Spokane my entire life too, except for as of this afternoon, I mean.”

He grunts and they’re silent again until finally the curving, winding, rising and falling road straightens out like a pin, and the land stretches out flat and placid on either side of them. There are ranches to the left and right here, and once they get into and past the little town there will be the vineyards and sprawl of houses where he lives. They pass the one gas station and one of three restaurants and drive into the lazy rumple of hills, the grasses breezing to and fro beneath the white moonlight. When he looks over he can see her smiling, and _that_ makes him oddly happy, because he loves this place despite the shitty memories that live like ghosts here.

“Welcome home, Sansa Stark,” he says when they pull up his driveway, _their driveway now,_ and she hunches forward to gaze at the one story ranch house he had built for himself. He kills the engine and opens his door to get to Genna in the backseat. “Up you come, kid,” he says as Genna mutters and whimpers in her sleep. _At least she didn’t have those bad dreams during the drive home._ As she slumps against his chest with her head on his shoulder, the sounds of wild yipping and yowling fills the air, and Sansa startles though Genna doesn’t even stir.

“What _is_ that sound?” Sansa asks, eyes wide as she turns to stare at him. The cab light is a sickly yellow but she’s pretty even with it casting shadows on her face, hollowing out her eyes and sharpening her cheekbones. Sandor grins, because he knows the light above does no such favor for him.

“Coyotes,” he replies. “But don’t worry, I won’t let them take a bite out of you.”

“Hmmph,” she says with a sniff as she unbuckles her seatbelt and opens her own car door. “Well, if they do I’ll just bite them back,” she says with an attempt at bravado, and he laughs.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 1/2 picset](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/102206777147/jillypups-and-vanillacoconuts-oops-i-did-it)
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> [Another :)](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/102248006803/jillypups-bex-morealli-another-one-jil-that)

It’s only a one story house but the ceilings are high and the floors are a shiny, glossy concrete, painted red like a brick. There is the kitchen to the left, contemporary and Spartan, the living area to the right with two huge sectional sofas and a flat screen TV mounted on the far wall. It’s mostly open floor, with a huge black metal fireplace that comes down in the center of the huge space, open on all sides so the entire main room can benefit from the warmth of a fire should the weather call for it. She shivers when she looks at it, still grateful for the significant difference in temperatures between Tucson and this isolated, tucked away little place.

“Let me just put her to bed and then I’ll show you your room, all right?” He glances over his shoulder at her, scarred cheek against Genna’s, the scary and innocent pressed together, already retreating down the darkened hallway and she nods, watching him disappear into one of the rooms off the hall before sighing.

“Home sweet home, huh,” she says with a sigh, taking the hoodie she had draped over her purse and shrugging into it and zipping it up. A quick inventory of the place suggests she hang her purse strap by the plaid jacket hanging up on one of five hooks next to the front door and she does so. Next to the huge coat is a smaller sweater, violently pink with sparkly sequins, and Sansa smiles, touching it with her fingertips before turning to take in the rest of the place with a more critical eye.

There are framed black and white photos of what she assumes is the local landscape and a few area rugs on the floor to cut up the sea of red concrete, but that’s about it when it comes to putting a little personality into the place. The walls are white and the exposed beams along the ceiling are a dark, espresso brown, and she can see the thick fibers in the wood even all the way down here. There is a Mexican style blanket hanging on the wall by the TV and it looks _old;_ the ones thrown over the backs of the two sectionals look far newer and more mass produced.

“Sorry about that,” says a deep voice from behind her and despite knowing it’s him, because with a rasp like that who else could it be, she jumps like a cat at the sound of it. She spins around to face him and he’s waiting for her with his arms across his chest and an amused look on his face. “And you think you can go up against a pack of coyotes, huh?”

“It’s been a long day,” she says as loftily as she can, hugging herself, and he nods to that, thank God. She’s glad he has at least enough insight to see the worth of her explanation, because she’s tired and anxious and unsure and yes, a sliver of her is scared. He walks out the front door without another word, and she’s frowning with her mouth open, peering out into the darkness in confusion but then she hears the sound of his tailgate being opened and the metallic slide of something heavy and she realizes she left her bags in his truck like some sort of princess. _He’s not going to appreciate that,_ she thinks and she hurries outside, blinking in what little glow the porch light casts out.

“Here,” he grunts, hefting her larger suitcase in one hand as he lifts the carry-on up and over the side of the truck bed, extending it out to her. Even in this low light she can see the high curve of muscle in his forearm.

“Thanks,” she says hastily, grabbing it from him by the handle he’s holding, and there is a tangle of fingers as they fumble with the exchange. “Ouch,” she says when he pinches two of her fingers against the handle, and he snorts – _was that a chuckle? Is that how he laughs? -_ before freeing his hand and slamming shut the tailgate.

“Been a long day for us both,” he says, and then she remembers he’s been up since five, that it’s probably ten o’clock right now and instead of getting a shower and going to bed he’s hauling her stuff inside. But before the guilt seeps in she reminds herself that he employed _her_ ; that he and Genna need her and that she is filling a much needed role, and so when she follows him inside, the _Sorry for keeping you up_ she was about to say dies on her tongue.

“All right, so,” he says once they’re inside and he’s shut the door, and Sandor sets her suitcase down to scrub his face with his hands. She realizes suddenly that he’s fixed his hair from the snarls and tugs from his niece’s attentions, and when his hands drop he looks far less crazed and intimidating. There are still those scars which, as he said, are here to stay, but when he looks up at her with his guarded gray eyes he simply looks like a tired man and not such a terrifying one. “You can see that’s the kitchen and the living room. Through those sliding doors is the backyard. It’s not fenced so when you two are playing back there don’t let her wander off. There’s snakes and shit out there,” he says. Maybe not terrifying, but not polished, either.

He picks up her luggage again and leads her down the hall, shows her the room that is now hers, or rather, will be once he moves the desk and computer out of it, and dumps her suitcase roughly onto the queen bed in the corner. It’s a decent sized room and she’s relieved to see a full sized closet; the tall girl part of her is happy to see that he provided an adult sized bed instead of a twin that her feet will hang off the edge of. Maybe she can get a desk of her own in here once she saves up the money, but first thing she’ll spend cash on is new bedding. The cowboy thing going on in the rest of the house is just fine, but Sansa will put her stamp on this room, and it doesn’t include blankets that look like they belong on the back of a horse instead of on a mattress.

“I’ll move this junk out of here tomorrow. It’s been crazy around here lately,” he says with a sigh. “Anyways, the bathroom is across the hall and Genna’s bedroom is between yours and uh, and mine. Down the hall, at the end of it, I mean,” and Sansa blushes as they discuss this because here she is, living with a strange man and she hardly knows anything about him but apparently his bedroom is down the hall, and the pure _idiot_ in her half panics, half wonders if this big bear of a man sleeps naked. _Ohmygodstopit,_ she thinks, and she pulls her hair over her shoulder for lack of anything else to do and nods.

“Perfect, thanks,” she says with a too-wide smile, and his gaze lowers to her mouth for a moment as if he never sees smiles, as if he cannot trust them, as if he never sees pleasant faces aimed his way. With a precocious girl like Genna she finds that hard to believe, but then again, love and laughter come from children far easier than they do from adults.

“All right, fine. Genna doesn’t have school tomorrow so you two can just rattle around the house,” he says, stepping towards her to leave the room, and Sansa has to press against the opened door to let the bulk of him pass into the hall. “Oh, and another thing,” he says after a pause, turning and bracing his arm against the wall. Sandor clears his throat and looks at the floor. “She gets these nightmares a lot, wakes up crying and asking for her, you know, for her mama. They scared the shit out of me the first couple of nights she was here, so I wanted to give you a head’s up in case it happens tonight. Don’t worry about it if it does, I’ll take care of it whenever it happens. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, feeling the sudden weight of her responsibilities with such a tragically troubled child, or what they will be once she’s fully immersed herself in the job, and she feels shivery and agitated as well as bone tired and sleepy. There’s nothing more she’d like than a shower to calm her down and wash off the stale plane air, so she smiles as brightly as she can and tells him good night. He very nearly smiles back, but instead devotes the energy giving her frank appraisal. She blushes though it’s nothing sexual, is as far from sensual as it can be. She feels like a draft horse or a piece of farming equipment, as if he is seeing if she measures up to the task. Sansa straightens her spine and squares her shoulders, lifting her chin and finally her eyes to his. _I can handle this,_ she thinks, willing him to hear her telepathically. _I am tougher than I look, buster._ He nods after a moment, and she feels a surge of power, the thrill of victory no matter how small.

“’Night,” he says finally, pushing off the wall and disappearing into the depths of darkness where his bedroom door must be. Sansa exhales with a rush and slumps against the door again, rolling her eyes. “ _Man_ , that guy is intense,” she murmurs to herself before sighing and unzipping her bag to hunt for her toiletries. It’s a quiet, stony, masculine house, and while she grew up with a dad and three brothers, there were still three girls, with her strong willed, soft handed mother to man the ship, and the absence of such a headstrong feminine force is achingly felt in such a place. She’s only known Genna for a couple of hours but while the aloofness of her uncle and of his house repel her, the desire to give this little girl something more than all that pulls her heartstrings and bolsters her resolve, and so with a set jaw she crosses the dark hallway into the bathroom.

 She takes a scalding hot shower with, she has to admit, wonderful water pressure, not to mention approximately $50 worth of bath toys at her feet, and just smelling the familiarity of her shampoo and soap make this place feel a little less foreign. _It doesn’t take much to make a place feel like home,_ she thinks, and she knows now that she will tear into tomorrow with her eyeteeth and hold firm. After a freezing search for a towel, it is mere minutes before teeth are brushed and hair is combed, and Sansa falls into her new and unfamiliar bed, slips into new and unfamiliar dreams of coyotes and gray eyed men, of little girl laughter and the widest sky of stars she’s ever seen.

 

He hears her switch on the shower, hears the metallic squeal of curtain rings slide across the shower rod, and Sandor is relieved he washed up before leaving for the airport, though he freezes in front of his dresser, ears pricked in case the sudden noise wakes up Genna. After several moments of silence, save for the faint rush of water, he breathes easy and continues to dress for bed. He knows Sansa traveled all day and must feel the dust of the road but her oversight rankles him and he has to wonder if she’s up for this; true, she told him in her emails that she is one of five children and has helped raised the younger two for as long as she can remember, but then again, _he_ told her the tragedy of Genna’s life. This is not some coddled, secure little kid with a big tumble of family all around her; both parents are dead and she’s never known her father, and now all she has is _him_ , a scarred, mean asshole who doesn’t know what to do with her.

Christ knows he’s done his best these past four months, moving the exercise equipment from her room to make way for the two tons of pink toys and other crap that came with her, figuring out how to enroll a kid into school, finding a pediatrician and a child therapist to help her through it all. He mutters to himself at how Sansa scolded him for his niece’s irregular hours. _What does she know? She’s a kid fresh out of college, while I’m trying to keep my head above water after basically getting a four year old sent to me through the mail._ But now he feels bad, thinking of how exhausted Genna is when he gets her up so early; often times they fall asleep on the couch together in the afternoons after he picks her up from daycare, and then they’re both wired until all hours of the night and it’s impossible to get her to bed.

It’s _never_ easy for him to fall asleep even when he goes to bed on time, not since his niece came to live with him, but now he’s all the more agitated and vexed by this new arrival; he has always, _always_ lived a solitary life, ever since high school when his father died and Gregor bailed to join the army, has been working ever since he was 15 doing the work he does to this day, but now his world is full of pink and purple toys, hair ties and hair bows his large fingers can barely work into her hair, nightgowns with unicorns and a freezer full of frozen nuggets and pizza rolls. And as of tomorrow, what? What will Sansa bring into this house? How will she disrupt his world until he can’t even recognize it anymore?

Sandor strips to his boxers and quickly pulls on a pair of pajama pants, cinching the tie around his hips before crawling with a grunt into bed. CPS suggested he take a few days off when the au pair came to get her acclimated not only to Genna but her new surroundings, and while he had grumbled and complained about it to Gayle, now he and his aching shoulders are absolutely grateful for the four day break. He punches his pillow into shape and rolls onto his stomach, arms folding beneath the pillow as he turns to face the windows that cover the entire western window. Sandor will get to sleep in tomorrow along with his niece and again he thinks of the new nanny’s indignation; _maybe she has a point_ , he thinks with a scowl, gazing out into the black and blue of his property, seeing the distant porch light of Barristan’s place, wondering what that old cowboy is doing up this late.

Her shower shuts off and he hears the shrill squeak of the curtain being drawn back and once more he listens, rising up on his elbows, breath in his throat, for any sounds of Genna waking up, any whimper, any cry; he rakes his hair out of his eyes and away from his ear, but there is nothing, and content with the peace he drops his head and closes his eyes. Sandor can hear her rummaging around in the bathroom, doors opening and closing, and then he realizes with a jolt that he forgot to set any towels out. He is assaulted by a vision of her standing naked and shivering as she crouches down to look under the sink, stretches to look in the cabinets over the toilet where he stores them, is so inundated by the idea that he literally squeezes his eyes shut and covers them with a hand, trying to block it out. _That hair,_ he thinks with a groan, his mind’s eye wandering southward, and then there it is. _That’s what she’s bringing here, and that’s how she’s going to turn this place upside down._

He’s still on his stomach when he wakes up, and it’s with a sharp inhale of breath and half of a push up, because he _never_ sleeps until he wakes naturally; it is always with the sun or an alarm or more recently, Genna jumping on him or shrieking _Daddy_ from her bedroom, and he is utterly discombobulated right now. Sandor blinks owlishly at the expanse of windows to his right, and the sunlight is the fat, merry gold of mid-morning, not the thin, watery light of dawn he is used to, and then he thinks _Oh, FUCK_ and he’s scrambling like a dog on a tile floor until he gets to his hands and knees, cursing and tangled in sheets and the twist of his pajama pants before he’s finally on his feet, terrified he’s about to find the front door open wide, the back doors slid open to their full extent, and Genna nowhere to be found.

“Genna!” His voice is a hoarse crack from sleeping so late and he can hardly hear it himself. He sprints down the hall when he sees through her open door that she’s not in her bed, but when he rounds the corner to barrel out into the backyard he sees Sansa and his niece in the kitchen, and the soft vision of them takes his already ragged breath away. They are in their pajamas and are wearing identical sloppy knots of hair on the crowns of their heads, tendrils of black curls wisping against his niece’s neck, long strands of auburn grazing Sansa’s temples, and Genna’s has about fifty bows in it, and she is sitting on the kitchen island in front of Sansa.

He stops abruptly, chest heaving from premature panic, watching as Sansa helps his niece crack eggs into a bowl, or rather, as Sansa expertly lets Genna _think_ she is cracking eggs, and then his other senses catch up to him, the ones that would have stopped his fear before it even started. He smells coffee brewing and bacon cooking. He hears the tinkle of little girl laughter and the dove’s wing voice of her au pair. “What the fuck,” he says without thinking, because honestly, what the _fuck,_ how did he not wake up to all of this, and _that_ makes Sansa finally glance up from her task. She has an eyebrow arched at him, and too late he remembers his language in front of the kid.

“Good morning to _you,_ ” she says, and he can hear the chastisement in her voice but because Genna is literally between them, she does not argue with him. He huffs.

“What time is it, anyways?”

“What’s the first number on the microwave, Genna?” Sansa asks, turning away from him to get milk from the fridge, and she pours a splash into the eggs. His niece peers at the microwave, and when she leans dangerously close to the bowl of egg yolks Sansa deftly sweeps the bowl off the counter, tucking it under her arm. It’s like watching a dance.

“Ummmmmm, nine?”

“Good job! Yes, nine. It’s nine fifteen on the nose, Mr. Clegane,” she says, putting the milk back in the fridge before returning to the island, and she looks up at him again. He stares at her, at this Mary Poppins bullshit, and he is _jealous_. Genna never eats anything but waffles for breakfast when it’s him insisting she eat anything at all, and here comes Sansa Stark with her eggs and bacon, with her hair done up like some ballerina come undone, and it might as well be a fairy wand in her hand instead of a spoon, to make all of this happen.

He doesn’t know what to say so he says nothing, walking around the kitchen island to the coffee pot, giving the girls a wide berth of selfish confusion as he takes down a mug for his coffee, and then he realizes how utterly unprepared he was, and is, to have this new person here, this woman in his home. He can see she’s taken a mug down, can obviously tell she’s been rooting around in his cabinets and pantry and refrigerator, and it’s a disconcerting, unsettling thought. He thinks of the lizards scuttling around here because of Genna, and thinks this is just another strange creature – _a beautiful creature,_ he corrects as he pours himself coffee, seeing her move in his periphery – invited into his home thanks to his niece.

“So,” he says with a rough clearing of his throat, after he’s moved past the island and around the counter to sit on one of the stools there, “have you two been up long?” Sandor narrows his eyes as he watches Sansa, already familiarized with _his_ kitchen, put the bowl of eggs down and open a drawer, pull out a spatula, and use it to flip the bacon. He feels possessive and defensive, feels that he has done everything wrong until this college kid came waltzing in to make everything perfect.

“A couple of hours, I think. She heard me brushing my teeth and came out to say hello,” Sansa says, smiling fondly to Genna, still perched on the island, busily slapping the whisk into the beaten eggs. He feels a fierce sense of pride, swelling up from nowhere to see that look of affection she gives his niece; she’s Gregor’s kid but it’s still his blood too, running through her veins, and while he smiles to himself whenever Shae hugs her after an afternoon at daycare, for some reason to see this stranger, this Sansa creature already have such warmth for Genna makes him proud. Maybe because Genna is _his_ , at the end of the day, no matter what kind of playdate they’re having.

“Hmmph,” he says, sipping his coffee as Sansa take the bacon out of the skillet, pouring in the beaten eggs after, and he begrudgingly admits to himself that he’s pleased she used the bacon grease instead of wasting it. Genna asks him to let her down and though Sansa offers to do it, he interrupts her offer and stands, and instead of waiting for him to come to the side she and Sansa occupy she just turns onto her hands and knees and stands on the island, head just shy of banging against the hanging skillets and pots overhead, and then she launches herself into his arms.

“Genna!” Sansa says with gentle admonishment, and again he feels a flare of possession and jealousy, and his arms wrap around her little body.

“It’s okay, we do it all the time,” he says. “That’s her favorite seat in the house, isn’t it, Gen?” He can’t help but grin when she nods enthusiastically. _Take that, Mary Poppins,_ he thinks, ignoring how immature it sounds and feels. He returns to his stool with Genna and she scrambles out of his arms to the stool beside him, imperial as a queen, wild as a banshee.

“Well, it will be something else we’ll work on later, I guess,” Sansa says as she scrapes the scrambled eggs from the bottom of the skillet. He can see the long curve of her neck as she inclines her head over her work, realizes she’s long limbed for a woman; he’s so tall it doesn’t much register anymore, and he’s rarely in close company with women to measure, but he thinks back to the haze of his exhaustion last night, standing in baggage claim, standing in her room, and yes, yes, she’s tall, too. And then he registers what she said.

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘something else’?”

“Bedtime, for one, patience and manners for a couple of others,” she says smartly, turning around to divvy the eggs on three plates, and it nearly shocks him, to think she’s making _him_ breakfast as well. It’s surreal and uncomfortable and he has half a mind to say no thank you, but Jesus, it’s bacon and it’s eggs, and Genna seems ready to eat it, until the plates are pushed towards the two Cleganes, one large, one small. “Ready to eat breakfast, Genna? You worked so hard on it,” Sansa beams.

And really, honestly, when he looks back on it later, Sandor _does_ feel bad when Genna shouts _NO_ and pushes her plastic princess plate to the floor and when Sansa’s face falls into crestfallen hurt before it brightens to a healthy, pink shade of anger, but in the vivid heat of the moment, he can only throw back his head and laugh.

 

Before she can open her mouth to tell Genna she needs some bedroom time, the little girl hops off her stool and drags open the sliding glass door, dashing outside before even Sandor can grab her arm or at the very least snag the sleeve of her nightgown. She is fuming, thanks to his laugh, which only pits her against both Genna _and_ her uncle, because now she’ll see her uncle as a sympathetic culprit.

“Honestly, Mr. Cle-”

“Oh for chrissakes, just call me Sandor. Maybe it will get her to do it, too, okay?” he says before shoving a piece of bacon in his mouth. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way,” and then he’s off like a shot after his niece, shouting her name in his booming, rake-over-gravel voice. Sansa stares at the eggs and bacon on the floor, the mess that those two _heathens_ have left for her to clean up, as if she is not just the au pair but the maid as well, and the expletives shoot forth before she can even help herself.

“Shit damn _shit_ ,” she says with frothy conviction because there’s no one else to hear it, slapping her open palm on the counter. There is the hint of tears, stinging like nettles – _no, cactus needles out here_ – in the corners of her eyes, but she has no room for hurt feelings when she is this mad. “It’s _him_ ,” she says to herself, grabbing the roll of paper towels and kneeling to scoop the wasted breakfast from the concrete. “He’s the one who brings out the rotten in her, because he just lets her do what she wants,” she says out loud through the clench of her teeth, rising on her knees to dump the mess in the trash.

She wants to rub _Mr. Clegane’s_ face in it like a bad dog, or maybe throw the wad of soiled paper towels at his bared, tattooed back. She also wants to forget, forever, the sight of him bounding into the room, eyes wild, scars fearsome, broad body lit up in the morning sun, and how his hair fell around his shoulders, blending into the black ink scrolling across the majority of his upper body _._ _No,_ she thinks with a scowl, _better to think of chucking this shit on him, the jerk._ _I worked hard all morning, getting up with her, coaxing her from her shell, and now I’m scrubbing his stupid floor._

She can see them running in circles outside in the crisp morning, his long hair thick around his shoulders and down his back as he tries in vain to grab the ever evasive Genna, whose hair rivals his own, though it curls and bounces where his is as dark and heavy as he is. Sansa imagines the hot eggs smacking into his shoulder blade, and it’s that thought that gets her through the rest of the cleanup, this humiliating evidence that whatever ground she thought she gained with Genna was just an illusion. She likes that girl, and because she likes her and because she does _not_ want to go home, not to that mess, not to that humiliation, it makes the disaster of this morning hurt all the worse.

“Genna, could you go ahead and get dressed for the day? I just don’t think I have the energy to help you right now, and we can’t go for a nature walk today unless you’re in outdoor clothes,” she says, deceptively calm when the two of them finally reappear in the kitchen, all flushed cheeks and bright eyes, chests heaving from the endeavor and the laughter alike, and it makes her doubly mad, that they got to have fun while she cleaned up the mess alone.

“Okay!” Genna leaves Sandor’s side and disappears, hopping like a frog, down the hallway, and in the privacy they are now afforded she rounds on her employer, ignoring his half nakedness, his looming size, his amused look there amidst the gray eyes and the scars and the beard and the hair that is nearly as long as hers.

“I am _not_ your maid, and I am _not_ here to be your personal jester,” she blazes, or at least she tries to. Her chin is up and her shoulders are back but her voice is thin and reedy from the exertion it takes to beat back the angry tears. She clings to the anger in an attempt the shed the embarrassment and loneliness, and so it’s a fist she bangs on the counter, and not an open palm. Sandor jumps, stares at her hand a moment, and then looks back up to her, eyebrows raised.

“Nobody said you were my maid, okay? _You_ decided to cook breakfast,” he starts, but Sansa sweeps in.

“I did it to be _nice_ ,” she spits, and here he huffs, crossing his thick arms across his bare chest. Now he’s amused, and _oh,_ how that makes her mad.

“I never asked you to be nice, _Miss Stark,_ ” he snarls, and she bangs her other fist on the countertop, but he’s already used to the outburst, and so he is unfazed.

“You don’t want me to be _nice_ to a _child_?” He scowls, his chin jutting out, and takes a step towards her, and she’s grateful for the counter between them. He knows his size and he uses it to his advantage, and even in the thick of her anger she fights the tremble in her limbs.

“No, I want you to be nice to _her,_ but I didn’t ask you and I don’t _want_ you to be nice to –” and he stops, just like that, and the fury flies out of her so it can be replaced with bemusement. She wants to ask _why,_ why can’t she be nice to him, but she hasn’t the words or the courage to form them. They’re staring at each other in equal parts confusion and temper when Genna comes flying in, wearing a Rapunzel dress and a pair of underwear on her head.

“Sansa! Sansa, you can’t go outside in jammies!” she screams as she tears outside. Sansa and Sandor stare at each other, but in the wake of pink and purple and little girl, the anger is gone and they’re left glowering at each other with no wind left in their sails.

“If you’ll excuse me, _Mr. Clegane,_ I need to get dressed,” she says after a long inhale, an attempt at self-mastery, but he’s recovering himself too, all derisive humor, and he waits until she storms down the hallway and opens her bedroom door before he speaks.

“Don’t forget the underwear on your head,” he calls out, and her answer is the slamming of her bedroom door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 3 picset](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/102400047683/bex-morealli-jillypups-for-the-latest)

“She makes her go to bed now, every fucking night, at seven thirty. Seven thirty!” Sandor unties the string keeping the burlap around the root base of the apple tree before Bronn hefts the forty gallon sapling up and quickly places it in one of thirty holes they’ve been digging for the past week. He balls up the burlap for future use and immediately starts pushing the upturned dirt into the hole around the sapling’s root base. He doesn’t wear gloves because he likes the feel of earth on his skin, the cool and the hot of it depending on the season, and because deep down he thinks it helps him understand the plant better, though he would never, ever say that out loud.

“Sounds like a real piece of work, man,” Bronn says from above as he holds the fifteen foot tall tree in place while Sandor packs in the soil around it. “I can’t believe this bitch has the nerve to put your kid to bed on time,” and it’s then that Sandor picks up on the sarcasm, and after he presses his hands to the dirt in a circle around the tree, after he is confident it’s securely planted, he stands.

“First off, Genna’s not my kid, she’s my niece, asshole, and you know that,” he says, wiping his palms on the front of his t-shirt. “Secondly, it doesn’t bother me that she’s making her go to bed, it’s bothering me that she’s making her go to bed so early. I uh, you know, we work ‘til the sun goes down. This summer it’s gonna go down at eight o’clock.” He sniffs and rubs his nose with the back of his forearm, gazing down the line of dug up holes that mark the property line between Barristan’s  and Renly’s, striving for nonchalance, but Bronn isn’t a  _complete_  idiot.

“Someone misses his little rugrat niece, huh,” his coworker of twenty years says and Sandor doesn’t answer because Bronn has the right of it. “You could always just go home earlier every now and then. It wouldn’t bother me, so long as we get our shit done in time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sandor says, but he’s doubtful because it has been an absolute freeze out in the house, ever since their fight over breakfast, and while he doesn’t think he did anything wrong it leaves him with an odd sense of dissatisfaction.  _I laughed at her, though,_  he thinks, grunting to himself as they head back to the truck for another tree and a water break, and the image of the hurt look on her face crops up, and yeah, he feels bad about that.  _I’d say sorry if I thought she’d even listen,_  he thinks, because while little miss Mary Poppins is the spokeswoman for perfect manners when Genna is around, she gives him the stoniest silent treatment he’s ever experienced, and Sandor is himself a quiet, taciturn man. But then he leaves the room and she bursts into song with Genna, and his niece’s room erupts with giggles and shrieks and the high-pitched babble of happiness, and the snub makes him scowl.

“Margaery really wants to meet her, you know,” Bronn says. He’s sitting on the open tailgate, one foot still on the ground, squinting in the sun as he gazes at all the work they have left to do. Renly wanted a wall of blossoms, a fence of apples, and while it isn’t practical it’s not up to him, plus it’s a shitload of money and Sandor will never say no to that.

“I’ll bet she does,” he mutters, taking off his old, worn out, misshapen cowboy hat to let the sweat on his scalp dry in the breeze. It’s cool today but the sun is ever present, and even though they’ve only stuck ten trees in the earth he’s got sweat rings on his shirt already. “Nosy woman of yours, always meddling in other people’s business.”

“Ah, she’s just bored is all, man, lighten up. It can get pretty boring and routine out here, and now someone new is in town, plus they’re around the same age, aren’t they?” Sandor shakes his head.

“She’s just a kid, twenty two or three at the most, fresh out of college,” he says; Margaery is nearing thirty, if he recalls correctly, though she’s energetic and gregarious enough for a college girl, dancing with a beer at the bar, giving zero fucks for whoever’s staring at her, and when Bronn shrugs dismissively he knows his friend is thinking the same thing. But he is reluctant to introduce them, to pull Sansa into his world even more, and he is also hesitant because he  _knows_ the ration of shit both of them will give him when they see how breathtaking she is.

Like last night.  _Oh Jesus,_  he thinks to himself, guzzling water from the gallon container, and the rivulets that escape his mouth and run down his throat are refreshingly cold. He sets the jug down and shoves his hat back down on his head and hauls another apple sapling out of the truck bed. After Genna’s bedtime and her shower she made herself dinner last night while he watched television, some fancy salad with the nuts his niece refuses to eat, and some of the berries she  _will._ When Sansa dropped the knife on the floor with a loud clatter, he glanced over in time to see her bend over to get it. Her gym shorts rode up to further illustrate just how long limbed she really is, the long fall of auburn nearly reaching the ground when she picked up the utensil, and it made him think of words like faerie and nymph though he’s never seen either.

Bronn will never let him live it down, if he meets her.

They close out the day with the rest of the fruit trees, tamping down the soil with their feet as the sun sets behind them, and in the fat hazy glow of a blood orange sun dying on the horizon, there is a blush of warmth before the dusk breezes turn cool, and it’s like kisses of ice on his sun soaked, sweat-stained skin. He takes off his filthy shirt to better enjoy the contrast, wiping under his arms with it before chucking it in the bed of his Silverado. Bronn’s hair is plastered to his forehead until a gust of wind blows it up and he grunts in appreciation, and for a while the two men stand between their trucks, arms folded across their chests as they look over all of their hard work.

“Margie and I are hitting up Hops and Vines for a drink later tonight if you want to go. I mean, you’ve got a live in babysitter now; you can get yourself out there. Not that this place is swarming with women, but you know, it’s Friday night, man.”

Sandor waves him off; the last thing he needs right now is some cougar, wine-wasted enough to overlook his mess of a face, breathing down his neck telling him her favorite song is  _Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)._  “I’ll skip it, thanks,” he says, tossing his hat in the backseat of his truck.

“Better luck next time, man. Have a good one,” Bronn says as he slams shut the tailgate of his F-250, parked as it by Sandor’s truck in the long stretch of Renly’s lawn. They nod to each other as they man their individual vehicles, and Bronn sticks his hand out of the window as he pulls ahead of Sandor before turning onto the main road.

 _Have a good one,_  he thinks with a snort and a shake of his head as he turns on his radio and the sound of Charlie Daniels drinking his baby goodbye fills the cab. What he needs to have is an ice cold beer and a hot shower, some peace and quiet maybe, but what he’ll get are frosty looks from the resident ice queen and a headache from Genna yanking on his hair and pouncing on his shoulders, but even as he complains about it internally, he’s got a smile on his face by the time he pulls up the gravel driveway to his house.

 

Genna screams like an eagle when the front door opens, and she drops her My Little Pony on the floor before tearing out of her bedroom, and she can’t help but laugh at the sight of her, or rather, her disappearance. Her uncle may be a thorn in Sansa’s side but he is his niece’s hero, her grumpy, foul mouthed hero, and there is simply no denying it. Now if he’d just stop letting her do whatever the hell she wants; just two days ago she came back –  _no, came home, this is my home now_ – from a jog to find Genna watching an episode of Sons of Anarchy next to Sandor, her little eyes wide as saucers as the room was filled with the sounds of swearing and gun shots.

Genna runs down the hallway and Sansa emerges from the bedroom in time to see her launch herself at her uncle, who stoops down in time to catch her and lift her into his bare arms, a dirt-covered sweaty old t-shirt falling to the floor. He’s gruff and rude but it’s painfully obvious how much he cares for her, though to see the stony expression he wears most of the time you’d think he was just humoring them all. His arms flex as he hefts her and _Jeez, does this guy ever wear a shirt,_ she thinks with her cheeks burning, but even she has to admit it’s sweet, the way this big scary guy delights little Genna, and she grabs his face and thunks her forehead against his. “SANDERRRR,” she says, and Sansa can hear him laugh, deep in his chest, because even a guy like Sandor Clegane isn’t completely immune to a little girl’s charms. She folds her arms across her chest and leans against the wall outside her bedroom door, watching these two lawless creatures greet each other.

“She had a great day at school today. Didn’t you, Genna?” Sansa coaxes after he sets her down, and he starts, looking up at her as if she’s just spoken French to him or has suggested they blow up the White House. “What? She did,” she says lamely with a shrug.

“I’m sure she did,” he says after a moment, dropping his gaze from her to look at his niece, as if he can only manage looking her way for so long before it bores or irritates him, and Sansa represses a sigh. “I’m just surprised you’re actually talking to me. It’s been Cold War II around here for the past week,” and she feels childish now, but she’s just managed to get her temper settled after that miserable failure of hers, her first morning here.

He doesn’t pick on her about it, however, instead walks down the hall, Genna hopping around in his wake as she follows him back to his bedroom, and Sansa sits on the sofa, legs curled beneath her, the weave of the Mexican blanket a soft scratch on the backs of her arms, wondering at how uneventful her Friday nights have become. Last weekend was a bizarre stretch of time, Sandor having let her do what she pleased as he commandeered Genna, so she wandered the ten acres of his property, all sloping earth and white, dry grass, studded with spidery, spiky plants Sandor brusquely called sotol when she asked him.  It was a quiet, long, lonely weekend and she was beyond grateful for her Kindle and Sandor’s internet connection; she spent the majority of those two days holed up in her room reading. She wanted to spend more time outside, to explore his greenhouse and maybe check out what little exists of the town called Sonoita, but she wasn’t interested in speaking to him and was therefore that much more reluctant to ask him for favors, to sitting in a car with him for God knows how long.

She hears the shower turn on, and then Genna runs out wearing one of Sandor’s shirts over her nightgown. It’s _enormous_ , and she has to bunch it around her waist to keep from tripping on it; Sansa thinks of the nasty white t-shirt he balled up in his fist and took back to his room, and she’s worried this one is smelly as well, because she already bathed her charge, but when Genna bounds over and leaps onto her lap, she can only smell the fruitiness of her shampoo and the crisp smell of clean laundry. _So the brute at least knows how to wash his own clothes,_ and then she feels _bad_ for thinking that way. He clearly has his ducks in a row, even though he’s a bit of an a-hole, and the very real proof of his character is currently wiggling in her arms, trying to get comfortable as they watch the last bit of Wheel of Fortune together.

So when he eventually emerges from his bedroom, mercifully wearing a shirt with his track pants, looking far more civilized even with his loose hair, now that he’s clean, Sansa tries to see him differently. Maybe not as Genna sees him, because talk about impossibilities, but at least like a decent man, because he clearly is. He must be. _He has to be, right?_

“I assume she has to get ready for bed now, right?” He says to her, dismissive and rough as he grabs a beer from the fridge, and suddenly she realizes how badly she’d love a beer of her own. _He’s a good guy, remember, just ask,_ she thinks, but then she remembers his laughter, right in her face, the way he advanced towards her as a way to intimidate her, and thinks maybe he should dig up some manners in that greenhouse of his, and so she says nothing.

“Soon, yeah. Do you want your uncle Sandor to help you brush your teeth or me?”

“She doesn’t _have_ to brush her teeth, it’s the weekend, give it a rest,” he says with a shrug, and she stares at him as he comes to sit on the other sofa.

“ _Mr. Clegane,_ ” she hisses, but Genna is already crawling out of her lap and across the long sectional towards the one Sandor sits on, and then she’s burrowed against his side. Sansa narrows her eyes.

“Who’s Mr. Clegane, Gen? Hmm?” He looks down at his niece who laughs at the question.

“Nobody!” she cries, and he raises his eyebrows to Sansa as if the opinion of a four year old is enough to tip the scales. How a big grown up man and a little girl can have so much so overwhelmingly in common is beyond Sansa’s understanding and she’s say as much to him if she thought he’d take offense.

“Come on, Genna, let’s go brush teeth and then maybe your uncle will read to you,” Sansa says, unfolding her legs to stand, extending her hand for Genna to grab it.

“No! Daddy said no brushing teeth!” and Sansa takes a deep breath and counts to five, and when she glances up at him he is staring with exaggerated interest at the television.

“It’s _uncle_ ,” he says automatically at the same time Sansa says “If you brush your teeth, I’ll make sure you get a treat tomorrow, because little kids can’t have treats unless they take care of their teeth,” and the promise of something sweet makes Genna reconsider, and she hops down from her uncle’s side, nearly swallowed whole in his shirt. As Sansa leads her to the bathroom she risks a glance over her shoulder, and when she sees him glowering on the sofa she smiles because she _won._ She’s gotten bedtime and now she just got this, and she’ll take whatever she can get. He catches her look and he tips his head as he glares her way, and before she can help herself she sticks her tongue out at him before ducking into the bathroom because _If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em_. Over the sound of running water in the bathroom sink she can hear his laugh, short and sharp like the bark of a dog, and that’s a new thing in this household, Sansa getting him to laugh and not even at her. As she supervises Genna’s teeth-brushing, she meets her own gaze in the mirror’s reflection and affords herself a triumphant grin.

 

He knows the rugrat will want a bedtime story from him even though Sansa always offers, and so he’s sprawled on her flowery bedspread by the time they’re done with their teeth brushing, which he always used to let slide on the weekends before _she_ came to town. That makes him feel incompetent and bad about himself, but he forces himself to shove it aside when she comes trotting into her room, expertly bounding over the light mess of toys scattered on the floor before she crawls up the bed towards him. Sandor takes a moment to tug his t-shirt off of her, and he wads it up, about to toss it to the floor to pick up later, but Genna yanks it back, holding onto it like a blankie. Something inside him cracks.

It’s the same story as it’s been all week, some book about Sofia and her royal tea party, but despite how boring it is to read the same book, and despite missing just letting her fall asleep on him on the sofa while he watches a movie, there is something he likes about how she curls up on him, and how she falls asleep before the story is even over, her head a heavy weight against his ribcage. There is something fleeting and sweet about reading to her, far nicer even to him than slouching on the sofa with her body half in his lap, half dangling off, maybe because she’s listening to him and he’s speaking for her and to her.

“Sofia, right?” he asks, holding the book towards her, and she nods, but tonight is somewhat different from the others, because when she gets under the covers and hunkers down she doesn’t put her head on him, but instead sits up.

“Sansa! Sansa!”

“Coming,” she says, and he looks down at Genna, her face turned towards the door, and he has an uninterrupted moment to gaze at her profile. _How did she come from Gregor? How did he make such a cute face when he was so eager to destroy mine?_ Sansa pops her head in the doorway, fingers gripping the door frame beside her cheek. “What’s up, doc?”

“Come read with us, come read,” she pleads before her mouth opens for a big yawn. He glances to Sansa almost warily, waiting for a smug know-it-all look to get such clear cut evidence that his niece is indeed exhausted by such a relatively early hour, but while she’s looking at him when he lifts his eyes to her, it’s without smugness, and is full of questions instead. He blinks and frowns at her, and then it dawns on him that she is looking to him for permission, for approval. Sandor thinks briefly of shutting her down, of taking advantage of this situation since she is so eager and ready to change everything about their routine, to undermine nearly every choice he’s made on behalf of his niece. But there is no malice in him, not really, and so he nods with a shrug, jerking his head in a gesture of invitation, and she flashes a brilliant smile to Genna who, he can tell when he looks at her, is ecstatic for the additional company.

“What’s the magic word?” Sansa asks, and he shoots her a look of pure venom before he realizes she isn’t talking to him but to his niece. Sandor busies himself with the book, finding the first page, waiting.

“ _Pleeeaaase_ ,” Genna says in a sing song voice, and Sansa immediately pushes open the door and comes in, bending to pick up the toys that both he and Genna walked over, and she dumps then in the toy box before sinking gracefully into a tailor position on the floor, looking up at him expectantly.

“What?” he asks, and she grins with her eyebrows raised.

“The story, Mr. Clegane,” she says, and _Why am I always feeling stupid around her?_

“Please, for God’s sake, stop calling me—”

“Call him daddy like I do!” Genna says from the crook of his arm, and he’s at least not the only one mortified by such an innocent statement. Her face is red as an apple and it reminds him of the work he’s done all day, and Sandor thinks of apple blossoms and breezes in the leaves before the little girl by his side elbows him roughly in the ribs.

“Ow, Genna. Jesus, what’s the matter with you,” he gripes, and she is utterly unfazed.

“Read, read, read!” she says and before he can help himself he snaps at her for the magic word, which she gives him, and for the rest of the story Sandor tries and fails to ignore how Sansa beams with ill-concealed pride from the floor. He doesn’t have much to read, however, before she’s asleep in a drape across his torso and he’s carefully easing himself out from under her while Sansa stands and pulls up the blankets over her. She whispers _Good night_ so Sandor does too because is not one to be outdone, though he’s never said it before to someone who’s asleep and can’t even hear it, and then they’re out in the hallway, Sansa hugging herself and Sandor wondering where he put his half drunk beer.

“It’s your voice, I think,” she muses, half to herself, half to him, and he frowns down at her. She looks up at him, all wide blue eyes. _She’s getting freckles already,_ he thinks, wondering if she knows sunscreen is needed here even in winter, the sun is that aggressive.

“What d’you mean, my voice?” He asks, and she shrugs impatiently, brushing past him towards the kitchen.

“I mean, putting her to sleep. Your reading to her, I think it calms her down. She hasn’t even had any nightmares since I got here. It’s um, you know, it’s a pretty low voice,” she says.

“You mean it’s a rough, ugly voice,” he smirks, walking away from her and finding his beer on the end table between the two sofas. It’s to his back she next speaks.

“If I _meant_ it was rough and ugly, I’d have _said_ it was rough and ugly, _Sandor,_ ” she says, and despite the bite and zing of her retort, when he turns to look at her in surprise, she sucks in a gasp of shock at her own pluck.

“There,” he says, heading past her where she sits on the little ledge that surrounds the fireplace, “was that so fucking hard?”

“No,” she says, and she shocks herself again by laughing. She is so girlish, so borderline childlike with the sudden freedom that the laughter affords her, he can hardly believe she’s in her early twenties, but then that reminds him, and he looks down at his beer.

“Hey, you want one of these? I uh, I didn’t ask earlier. I’m not trying to be greedy.” She turns to him with a strange look on her face, but then she smiles and nods.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” she says, standing, hands in her hair, fingering combing through it as they so often are, and she approaches him like a wild hare. “Um, there’s leftover casserole in there, if you’re hungry. You always come home ravenous, so I made extra for Genna and me.” It’s shy but it’s earnest, nervous but sincere, so Sandor bends down to look in the fridge after pulling out an extra Negro Modelo for her. Sure enough in a baking dish halfway down there’s what looks like a chicken and broccoli casserole, and his stomach roars to life at the sight of it.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly as he pulls out the dish, embarrassed all of a sudden that this girl has a better grip on mealtimes than he does, and he’s closer to forty now than he is to thirty. Sandor hands her the beer, which she takes with a soft little _Thank you,_ and then he tears the cellophane off of the dish. “I can never remember lunches,” he says by way of explanation, when he takes a fork and digs into the cooled casserole and shovels a few mouthfuls into his mouth. “That’s better with a lime,” he says around his food, pointing to her beer, and Sansa wrinkles her nose at him before rounding the corner, sliding past him with a waft of flowery soap and lotion.

“You and your niece have a lot in common,” she says lightly, back turned to him as she cuts herself a wedge of lime next to the bowl of fruit. “No please or thank you, no I’m sorry about that, and definitely no table manners,” she says.

“Hey, I literally _just_ said thanks to you, Mary Poppins,” he snaps, and she laughs, which confuses him since he usually makes her startle or makes her mad, but maybe it’s the nickname he’s been calling her in his head, or the fact that he just defended his social graces with a mouth full of food.

“Oh my God, _what was that_?” She gasps, spinning around when there is a sudden rap of knuckles on the sliding glass door and Sandor turns, wondering if she thinks coyotes have learned to knock, but then his face falls in dread when he sees Bronn and Margaery standing and waving, the latter brandishing a bottle of wine like a weapon.

 _Oh, no,_ Sandor thinks, glancing to a wild eyed, stunning Sansa, standing beside him with her hand over her heart, her hair undone and loose like a lover’s, cheeks flushed from the sudden fright. _I’m screwed._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 4 picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102902711398/chapter-4-picset-im-going-to-make-one-for-each)

Once her heart stops hammering, and because Sandor is busy shoveling food in his mouth before he has to open the door to his friends, she is able to calm down, and when she does she feels silly for overreacting. Then again, she’s been here just over a week and this is the first sign of anyone else she’s seen, save for the driver of the adorable little bus that comes three days a week for Genna. Sansa takes the time to appraise the new arrivals currently making fun of Sandor as he wolfs down his food and chases it with a beer. The woman is miming gagging on something while the guy pretends to pound down the bottle of wine he stole from his companion’s grasp, and Sansa finds she cannot help but laugh.

“Great,” Sandor says, wiping his hands on the backs of his thighs as he pads barefoot across the red concrete towards the sliding door. “It’ll be the three stooges now with them over here,” and she frowns, wondering if he’s going to insult her in front of his friends.

“ _You’re_ the stooge,” she mutters into the mouth of her beer bottle before taking a long sip, and he glares at her over his shoulder before removing the pin from the top of the slider, the one she suggest he install three days ago to keep Genna from breaking out at will. He draws it open with a sigh, shaking his head as they say _Hi, you,_ and _What’s up, brother._

“I’d say this is a surprise but I reckon it’s right up your alley,” Sandor says, giving the woman a pointed look Sansa can see even from the kitchen. “Especially _you,_ ” and the woman puts her hand to her cheek as if he has offended her very sense of being, but then she grins like a wily fox and walks into the house.

“I have no idea what you mean,” she says, and the loveliness Sansa could see through the glass and in the dark of night outside is magnified here in the house. She’s beautiful, but beyond that and her catlike grin is the cleverness in her eyes, which are sparkling with mirth when they alight on her. “You must be Sansa,” she says with a smile, one Sansa cannot help but return, and the blonde comes forward to shake her hand. She’s in low slung jeans and a white tank top, a dazzling turquoise necklace with earrings to match, and Sansa wishes she was wearing more than yoga pants and a hoodie.  

“Yes, and it’s so nice to meet you, um,” and she winces with an apologetic smile and a shrug. She looks at Sandor, but he is busy muttering to the other man to bother looking at her. She looks back to the woman, and feels like an idiot.

“Margaery,” she says warmly before glancing to where her companion and Sandor stand near the fireplace. “Honestly, you didn’t even _mention_ me? And yet my photography is hanging in your house free of charge. You _wound_ me, Sandor,” and her employer rolls his eyes and continues talking to his friend in menacing undertones. _Well at least he’s not that way only with me,_ Sansa thinks. “Bronn! Come here, sweetie, meet Sansa.”

The man called Bronn sidles up and she likes him immediately, is reminded maybe of those coyotes she heard her first night here. He looks like he spends his days laughing, judging from the lines cut into his weathered, affable face, and his hand is like Sandor’s, dry, warm and leathery from manual labor when they shake their introduction.

“Well no wonder you wanted to stay home tonight,” he says, grinning openly at Sansa, and there’s an odd, lightheaded fuzzy feeling when she ponders his meaning. She looks up at Sandor, who is pointedly ignoring her to glare daggers at Bronn, but then his friend glances down to the fork still protruding from the last chunks of casserole in the dish, the saran wrap still in a wad beside it on the counter. “Beer and leftovers are a mighty strong pull. Hard to leave the house with these kinds of temptations,” he says, spearing a mouthful of food onto the fork and eating it before smiling to Sansa, and then he helps himself to Sandor’s fridge, pulling out a beer to match theirs. He’s funny, but Sansa thinks there might be a mischievous side to him.

She looks up and is almost nervous to see Sandor’s reaction. These two are _nothing_ like him, and it’s both perplexing and amusing, this odd friendship; if she herself can vex him by just drifting in the periphery she half expects him to send a fist through the window at all this teasing, lighthearted though it may be. But he’s got a resigned sort of look on his face as he swigs from his beer and comes to the kitchen, and wordlessly he rummages until he finds a bottle opener and glass for Margaery’s wine. They’re a small cluster around the counter beside the kitchen island, and she smiles brightly between the appraising looks of Sandor’s friends. He makes no attempt at conversation.

“So,” Sansa says, and Margaery reaches over and slaps Sandor on the forearm, earning a grunt and a glare.

“ _What_?” He pours her a glass of white wine and suddenly Sansa wishes she could switch out her drink; beer is all right but she much prefers the sweetness of wine.

“Well first off, your roommate here probably would like a glass of wine, and secondly, you’re forcing her to start the dang conversation,” Margaery says, and Sansa is mortified. _How did she know?_ She wonders if she looks like a wino, staring longingly at the bottle on the counter. Then there is the issue of being called Sandor’s roommate, and it sits oddly with her, but then Margaery is pushing between Sandor and Bronn. “Go on, you two thugs, get out of here, it’s crowded as it is, and if neither of you are going to talk then you’re useless.”

Margaery knows her way around his kitchen, and between this and the claim that the photos on the wall are her handiwork, Sansa wonders if perhaps she and Sandor have a history. She glances at Sandor, who quickly sweeps his damp hair up and wraps it expertly into a knot on the back of his head, and it’s funny to her, a man knowing the same trick she can do herself. But he doesn’t seem uncomfortable around Margaery, no more so than he seems any other time of day. He’s turned away from her again, and it’s a lonely feeling, maybe because he’s the only one here she knows, but she feels cut loose and abandoned. _What do you expect,_ she thinks, _when you only bicker and argue?_

“Here, Sansa,” Margaery says with a smile, holding out a glass of cold white wine, and she’s grateful for the gesture, but Sansa holds up her beer with a shrug.

“I already opened this though. Took a sip and everything,” she says, and Margaery laughs.

“Don’t worry, one of them will drink it. Here,” she says, setting down the glass in front of Sansa before gently plucking the sweating beer from Sansa’s hand and sauntering to where the two guys sit in the living room. She holds it out to Sandor. “Drink this. You’re a big guy, you can handle another drink, Daddy Warbucks.”

“Goddammit you two, I’m her _uncle,_ okay? Not her- oh Jesus, not her ‘ _daddy,’_ ” and Sansa holds back a snort of laughter; Genna nearly made her die from embarrassment earlier, but Sandor looked like he wanted to crawl inside of himself when his niece made that suggestion. She likes it when he gets flustered and embarrassed; he is always so quick to snap and bite, to rib and to make fun, it’s nice to see him suffer from the same treatment.

“Fine, whatever. So!” Margaery says, as she turns to Sansa, waving her over to sit with them despite having just banished the men from their presence two minutes ago. “Has _Uncle_ Warbucks told you anything about us?” She herself takes the seat next to Bronn, practically on his lap they sit so close, and her free hand slides familiarly across his upper thigh. Sansa curls up in the corner of the couch her boss sits on, legs tucked up under her, and takes a grateful sip of wine before setting it down on the end table between the two couches.

“You know, it’s been kind of crazy, getting settled in and letting Genna get used to me,” Sansa says, and it’s very nearly a grateful look he gives her for not mentioning the argument, their stilted method of communication, the snapping comments, the cold shoulders they’ve given each other. Sansa smiles.

Soon she learns how he and Bronn have worked together since high school, sixteen year old sophomores offering to cut weeds and mow lawns for the entire town, to pick grapes and plow fields, to plant trees and lay out flower beds, and how by the time they were in their mid-twenties they decided to make it a legitimate business. Margaery, or Margie as she asks Sansa to call her, looks proudly, fondly to Bronn as they discuss it, and it makes her feel bad for Sandor, who simply sits and listens, dutifully drinking her abandoned beer, because he’s done as much as Bronn has but has no one to gaze on him with pride.

She learns that Bronn has a pregnant dog and four horses, one of which no one can stand except Sandor, and he actually _grins_ when they briefly discuss the horse called Stranger, who is his in all but name, and how he’ll “kick the shit out of anybody but that guy right there,” and Sandor gives a modest shrug, but laughs when his friend paints the very colorful picture of how he got thrown off the first time he tried riding him.

“There’s nothing wrong with that horse,” Sandor says. “Just got a mind of his own, nothing wrong with that,” and she thinks they’ve got that common trait in spades.

They ask all about her family and she smiles to think of her brothers and sisters, is touched to see Margaery smile softly in an echo of her expression. She tells them about twenty six year old Robb fishing up in Alaska and how he saw a grizzly bear out hiking two weeks ago, who texted her all about it a few days ago. She grins when she brings up Arya, twenty one with fire engine red hair learning how to fix cars with a boyfriend the same age as Robb, and Bronn grins inexplicably to Sandor at the mention of Gendry, but when she glances to him he’s looking directly at her, body angled her way, and actually seems to be listening without judgment or complaint. Both Bronn and Marge laugh outright when she mentions fifteen year old Rickon, currently grounded for spray painting a beyond-offensive comment about his principal on the side of the gym because his girlfriend dared him.

She lowers her gaze and looks into her wine glass, bites her lip when she thinks of Bran, and clears her throat before telling them about the car wreck he got into three years ago when he was sixteen and how he’s in a wheelchair, will likely spend the rest of his life in it.

“Sansa, I’m so sorry,” Margie says with a gasp, leaning forward to pat her knee, but Sansa waves her off with a sad smile.

“It’s okay,” she says, glancing to a sympathetic looking Bronn, to Sandor who is still looking at her, and though his expression reveals nothing, his gray eyes seem to burn. Sansa swallows a sip of wine. “We’re just glad he’s all right, you know?” When she’s done discussing her parents and how her cousin Jon is also a firefighter like his father, she realizes it’s more she’s ever said to, or in front of, Sandor than all the previous times combined. She feels bizarrely proud of herself and vows to speak up more often.

She asks and learns that Margaery is a professional photographer, and that clarifies her earlier reference to the pictures in Sandor’s house. She has a few dozen photographs hanging in galleries in Tucson and Sedona, is a self-confessed shopaholic and an avid gardener as well. She spends her free time helping Sandor and Bronn with their flowers, and now Sansa learns they also own a nursery in town near the main crossroads of town where the 82 intersects the 83.

“I had no idea,” she says, shifting on the sofa to look at Sandor, who no longer looks at her, is busy looking at the bottle of beer in his hand. He shrugs, and she rolls her eyes at his reticence, making Margie laugh.

“You’ll get used to it eventually. Sandor speaks fluent cave man. You know, grunts, gestures, that sort of thing,” she says with a wink, and Sansa blushes. They may be his friends, but she’s in his employ, and she reminds herself of how he lets Genna climb all over him, how he smiles at her when he thinks no one is looking, that he’s a _good guy,_ and she feels kind of bad for him, being the butt of their jokes.

“He’s been really great though, helping me get settled,” she says in one of the few bald-faced lies she’s ever uttered, and when she smiles at him as if she is indebted to his kindness and hospitality he is staring at her with his mouth hanging open, and it makes her grin.  It’s funny to see him in such close proximity and without a scowl on his face, to see past the scars now, but she wonders why she ever thought they were so horrible in the first place. Yes, he’s lucky that it doesn’t affect the growth of his beard, though they go right to his hairline, but really, they’re not so bad. _It’s just a regular old face,_ she decides, arching her brow at him in a challenge to refute what she claims as truth before looking back to his friends. _It’s a good face,_ she thinks, ignoring the sultry little voice that chimes in with _a handsome face, if you think about it._

“Well, I’m glad he’s been behaving himself, Sansa,” Bronn says to her, shaking her from her thoughts, though when she looks up he’s grinning at Sandor with his eyebrows raised. _Yeah, you_ are _a sly old coyote,_ she thinks with amusement, but before she can turn to look at Sandor as well, Margaery puts her hand on hers.

“If he got you settled in then I’m sure he showed you around, right?” And here Sandor sighs, and he answers with a shake of his head. “Oh for Pete’s sake, Sandor! Not even the greenhouse down the hill?” Sansa is excited now, despite the rankled little sounds coming from her left where Sandor sits, because this is _exactly_ what she’s wanted, and maybe this woman of laughter and merriment will be her key to getting to know her new home.

“Well, it’s been kind of busy here, but I would _love_ to see more of Sonoita. And the greenhouse looks so cool,” she says, sipping her wine, leaning towards Margie over the arm of the sofa.

“It is super cool, actually. He grows _everything_ in the nursery from seed, and they all start their happy little lives in that old shack down there,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the sliding doors where, if it were daytime, Sansa would see the greenhouse, a long, low structure of glass and multi-colored wood, like a box of strange crayons hunkered at the foot of the hill. “We should go check it out!”

“Margaery, now is not the time,” Sandor starts, but she huffs indignantly, and Sansa feels a thrill as she stands up to him, but then again, she’s been doing plenty of that lately. She thinks maybe she’s got Robb and Arya to thank for it, all the times she’s had to dodge Robb’s ambush tackles, how many times she’s had to square off in a fight with her wild little sister.

“If you’re not up to it, I could do it,” she says flippantly to Sandor before hunching closer to Sansa. “I’m so excited to make a new friend, you have no idea. Brienne is fun but it’s impossible getting her away from her horses, and ever since Jaime moved in, well,” she sighs with a wave of her hand. “We could walk down with our wine and a flashlight and just, you know, _talk_. We could talk about all kinds of stuff. Oh, and I could take you shopping! Oh my God, the closest mall is Tucson, but there’s a Target in Sierra Vista we could tear into. And there’s Genna, who is an adorable pistol, I want to hear all about what you think of her, and of course _boys_. We could totally talk about boys, it’s my favorite subject,” she says, getting cut off by Bronn who insists this is news to him, and Sansa blames the wine for the flush of heat she feels in her cheeks, because _what boys?_ There’s only one boy she really knows here, and _he’s_ no boy, and _now_ her cheeks are burning.

“Jesus Christ, woman, stick a cork in it,” Sandor says, standing swiftly, and instead of being offended at his interruption she simply quiets down and reclines against Bronn, smiling serenely over her glass. Sansa looks up at Sandor with a bemused look on her face, but he just beckons her up with an upward sweep of his hand. “Come on, Poppins, put some shoes on, I’ll show you the goddamned greenhouse. Marge will just knock over the dirt and ruin everything.”

“Can I bring my wine?” she asks as she stands, because it’s the first adult beverage she’s had in weeks and feels she’s finally freaking earned it, but also because if he thinks Margie will knock over seedlings, she’s very worried she’s going to do it too if she’s bringing a drink with her.

“Sure, whatever. You’re off the clock, who cares?” He stalks off for his footwear, and Sansa stands awkwardly a moment before heading off to do the same, smiling over her shoulder at Bronn and Margaery. The moment she’s safely hidden in the hallway she sprints towards Sandor, catching him before he reaches the dark confines of his room with a hand on his bicep.

“Hey,” she hisses, and he wheels around, pulling his arm away in the process as if she were made of poison ivy. _Cooties,_ an inside voice thinks. She ignores it and straightens her shoulders.

“Look, you don’t have to take me, if you don’t want to. I can um, I can tell she’s messing with you a little bit,” but he shrugs.

“It’s no big deal, and I’d rather show you than have butterfingers over there rummaging around,” he gruffs, and when he walks away from her to presumably find his shoes, she’s left smiling, thinking of this big guy caring so much for his little plants. _It’s his job, Sansa, he has to,_ she thinks to herself, but there’s an image of him cradling a seedling in his hand that she just can’t shake, even as she laces up her sneakers.

“Have fun, guys,” Margaery says with a sip of wine when Sansa and Sandor are properly outfitted and about to go outside, Sandor barking orders to come get him if Genna cries out or wakes up.

“You really are a piece of work, babe,” Bronn says before Sandor slams shut the sliding door, and Sansa can only admire her gumption and her bravado, and she very much hopes they will well and truly become friends.

 

She’s light on her feet, even in the dark with the beam of the flashlight bouncing along the ground, but then again everything about her seems nimble and quick, the darting of a sparrow or a dragon fly. They are down the slope in moments, silent save the crunch of grass beneath their feet and the sounds of their breathing, and it feels strange after so much conversation. He wonders what she’s thinking, wonders if she is missing her family or is thinking about her crippled brother, the nineteen year old, Bran.

“Well, here it is,” he says when they get to the door of the greenhouse, undoing the latch with a flick of his wrist. “It’s not much,” he adds quickly, roughly, because while _he_ is proud of his handiwork, of how whatever he plants seems to thrive, he is also well aware that it’s a small thing to most other people, and he’ll not be caught caring in front of prying, hurtful eyes.

Sandor pushes open the door, turning off the flashlight as he flicks on the solitary bulb that hangs in the center of the place, and when she gasps he thinks maybe she stubbed her toe or something, but when he glances over his shoulder at her she is gazing at the rows and rows of young plants with her mouth open. He huffs but he’s pleased; he knows it’s not the most beautiful greenhouse, having built it himself with mismatched lumber but it smells of rich earth and of _green_ things, of life and nature and peace and quiet, though sometimes he swears he can hear them all growing.

“Oh my God, this is so cool,” Sansa says, and he casts a quick glance at her as she steps inside, wine glass in hand, and gravel grinds beneath the tread of her sneaker. He can tell she wants to touch the rows of peach tree seedlings but to her credit she doesn’t, simply bends down to gaze at them. There are all manner of trees, stone fruits and ash, oak and mimosas, honey mesquite and desert willows, all neatly labeled in his handwriting, and they take up the entire wooden shelf on the left side of the greenhouse. To the right are shrubs and flowers, and in the center is his work station, a great wooden table covered in the ordered chaos of his craft; spades, unused gloves – except for winter; digging in the winter is a bitch – and bags of soil, dozens and dozens of plastic pots, neatly nestled in one another in several stacks.

Suddenly, he wishes he could see it through her eyes, because to him it’s art, nature, his livelihood, but the way Sansa drifts down the length of the place, sipping her wine, the way she peers down to read the plant types, suggests she might find magic here too, in the dirt and the roots and the leaves, in this glass house of flowers and green.

“And you grew all these from seeds? Like you don’t buy them already sprouted or whatever?” She straightens and turns to look at him, and he shakes his head.

“Nope. It’s cheaper to do it from seed, considering I’ve got everything here already, and  I get more of a return that way,” he says, wandering down the rows of flowers on the right;  the columbine, pestemon and wine cups are doing well, and soon he’ll have to take the pallet of juvenile Spanish bayonets over to the nursery.

“What are those?” she asks, stepping over a five gallon pot to come stand beside him, pointing to the desert sunfowers, just beginning to bloom, and he tells her so. “They’re so pretty,” she smiles, and then she’s looking at all the names of these desert flowers. She particularly likes the autumn sage.

“Great for butterflies and hummingbirds,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, oddly embarrassed. “You know, for your flowerbeds. Put those and some lantana in and you’re golden.”

“This is really cool,” she says, and his pride, so easily wounded, lifts its head in his heart, sniffing the air for danger, but it can’t detect any and so Sandor allows himself to feel it. “I love flowers, but I’m not very good at keeping them alive, not like you guys,” and that makes him laugh.

“Bronn is shit at it. He can dig a hole and stick a plant in it, but he better walk away after that, or else he’ll kill the damned things,” he says, making her laugh and liking it, though the mention of Bronn’s name makes him want to throttle the bastard for all the hints and innuendos he’s been dropping. First words out of his mouth when he saw Sansa were _I’ll be damned, you struck gold, you lucky, horny bastard._

“But Margaery likes it, right?” He nods and she smiles. “She’s pretty cool, too. Well, I mean, both of them are, but she’s, you know,” she says, gesturing for lack of better words as she sips her wine, and he snorts a laugh.

“A real piece of work, that’s what she is,” he says, thumbing the leaf of a California poppy before dropping his hand. Margie fucking Tyrell, raising hell and loving it since she was a freshman in high school, mooning over Bronn whenever they’d come mow her father’s lawn. He’s known her forever and supposes that’s why he tolerates her.

“That’s really nice she gave you the photos on the wall though. Photography can be _expensive._ Are they from around here?” She leans her hip against the wooden shelf holding up the shrubs, and suddenly he finds himself in a face to face conversation with Sansa, one that doesn’t involve Genna or his manners, one that doesn’t spark anger in her eyes, and he’s so confused he just joins right in.

“Yeah, out near Parker Canyon Lake,” he says. “Though it was more like forcing me to hang them instead of me asking her for them,” and he shakes his head at the memory of it. “I had to hang them up just to get her out of my house. Said the place needed some character,” and he rolls his eyes, his mouth twitching with the urge to grin when she laughs.

“Sorry, but she’s right. It’s very, you know, Spartan, not a lot of things going on. Very masculine,” she adds and he laughs outright.

“That’s because a man lives there,” he grins down at her, making her blush, and he finds he likes that as well. She’s easy to pick on like this, when she’s not so fucking mad at him.

“So then Genna’s the only one to give it a girl’s touch, huh?” She says, and now _he’s_ feeling the heat in his cheeks, because what is she asking him? He shrugs, uncomfortable now.

“I guess, if stepping on pink and purple Legos is a girl’s touch,” he says.

“I sort of wondered if maybe, you know, you and Margaery,” she mumbles, drinking the last of her wine. “You know,” she says and he goggles at her.

“ _Margaery?_ Fuck, no! Jesus. She’s been riding Bronn’s jock since he was twenty years old, man. Margaery and me,” he chuckles with a shake of his head, and she scowls at his amused reaction. “I mean, trust me, I definitely question her taste in guys, but even I know I'm a few miles out of Bronn's league,” he says, gesturing to his face, and she shakes her head, making her hair dance.

“That’s not true at all,” she says with frown, and he wonders if she realizes what she just said. “You shouldn’t say that kind of stuff about yourself, it’s not nice.”

“I find that hard to believe coming from _you_ , Sansa ‘Scars,’” he smirks, and she looks hurt by that, even though she was the one doing the insulting that night when they first met. He’ll never forget the trepidation in her eyes, the _fear_ there that he knew he’d find, but he’s looking at her now and there’s no fear anymore; there’s not even irritation, when there so often is. Part of him feels compelled to amend his little dig, but before he can decide if he wants to, she lifts her chin as she looks up at him in the low light.

“Look, I feel really bad about that. I wasn’t thinking, and I guess I was a little taken aback by them, okay? You’re a pretty intimidating guy, Sandor,” she says, using his name for the second time since he met her. “At least, in the beginning you are,” she corrects herself with a grin, trying to sip her wine, forgetting she already finished it.

“Oh yeah? And what am I now?” He says, stepping towards her where she’s leaning, closing the distance until she is forced to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. Sandor has made grown men falter with such a move, has made six foot tall bikers stammer and try to apologize for insulting the ruin of his face. Sansa leans back and cranes her neck; he can see the muscles of her long throat move when she swallows, but she doesn’t move much more than that.

“Right now you’re just being a bully,” she murmurs, and he is suddenly excruciatingly aware of just how close he is to her now. The light from that single bulb isn’t much, and it feels very close here in the greenhouse, with the thickness of humidity and the smell of the earth. He thinks of Eden, of snakes and apples, and he wonders if he’s the serpent or the man, if she’s Eve or the apple. Sandor clears his throat and steps away from her.

“Whatever, Poppins. Come on, let’s go back before they wake up Genna for a dance party or something,” he says, voice suddenly dry and all the hoarser for it, giving a shake of his head as he steps out of her way so he can slide the latch in place after her. “You’re all out of wine anyways, and Margie always loves a drinking a buddy.”

 

She is not visibly shaken, at least not when she excuses herself to go to the bathroom where she runs the water and stares in the mirror, but he floored her, stepping into her space like that. It made her heart hammer and her mouth run dry, but she was determined not to step back, not to let him throw his weight around like he owns the place. _Well, he_ does _own the place, but not me, not my reactions._ She meant to stand up to him but it felt far more forward, for more aggressive than she’d meant, but Sansa cannot deny that there was a thrill to it, cannot lie to herself and say she didn’t feel just a little powerful for it, for how he backed away from _her,_ from sweet little Sansa with the manners.

Sansa splashes her face with water, flushes the toilet and turns off the tap to dry her hands, and then she heads back into the living room where Bronn and Margie are speaking animatedly about who is the better driver, and she’s delighted to find out they’re talking about driving quads.

“I _love_ those things!” she says, returning to the corner of her couch where she sat before, finding that her wine glass has been refilled in her brief absence, and she wonders if it was Margie or Sandor who refilled it.

“ _You_ love quads,” Sandor says in disbelief, and she nods with a grin at him, and with this new topic of conversation all nervousness flees despite that look of scrutiny he gives her, all furrowed brow and sardonic twist of his mouth.

“Yes I do, and I bet I could drive donuts around you,” she nips, and Bronn says _Oooooh damn, son,_ and she grins when Sandor reacts to her words and Bronn’s, folding his arms across his chest and leaning away from her as if he cannot believe his ears.

“Lady, I have been riding those things since before you were _born,_ ” and though usually those comments embarrass her, being called out for her youth, for something she actually cannot help, she is _that_ confident in her abilities.

“Then you’re going to be _really_ embarrassed when I kick your butt,” she says, the last of her words drowned out by Bronn laughing so hard he chokes on the last of his beer, and Margie nudges her, gives her a high five when Sansa looks her way.

“Get him, honey. These two are so cocky it’s unbelievable. We should totally go riding tomorrow, you guys,” she says, grinning to her boyfriend, raising her eyebrows to Sandor. “Unless, of course, you two are writing checks your asses can’t cash,” and Sansa laughs.

“Fine,” Bronn says, standing to get himself another beer. “You still got that quad you bought off Podrick, brother?”

“Yeah,” Sandor says, and Sansa looks at him with a shrug and a shake of her head. “I bought it for Genna, for when she’s older,” he says, and he sounds sullen, embarrassed to admit what any other uncle would be proud to declare.

“Awesome, so we have four, one for each of us,” Margie says with a clap of her hands. “Genna can ride with you, grumpy, and Sansa and I can show you two idiots how to handle those puppies.”

“And exactly how did _you get_ so good at driving a quad, Poppins?” She turns to her boss who’s looking amused now, thoughtfully rubbing his bearded chin as he regards her. Sansa lifts her head imperiously and sips her wine.

“Because we got one for Bran, all outfitted so he could get around outdoors without his chair. We were always hiking, biking, camping, all that crap, and he wanted company on the quad, so we got a couple of other ones, and you had to be pretty damn good at those things to catch up to Branny,” she says, smiling to remember the summers home from college, and though she, like Margie, far more prefers to shop than she does four wheeling in the mud, it’d be a lie to say it wasn’t fun as hell, going mudding with Bran and Robb.

“Hmmph,” Sandor says as if he doesn’t believe her, a smirk half hidden in his beard, but she’ll show him tomorrow. It is decided they’ll meet up at Bronn and Margie’s and tear around their property, and upon Margaery’s insistence they also agree to go to Hops and Vines for a drink afterwards and so Genna can have all the popcorn she can eat, and Sansa can’t believe how different this weekend will be from the first one she spent here.

Sandor’s friends take off shortly thereafter, Bronn declaring that old men need their sleep to kick the asses of young women, and as quickly as they came, they disappear, out the back door same as they arrived, and she and Sandor sit in awkward silence as they listen to Bronn’s vehicle fire up and the twang of country music fill the night air.

“I liked them, they’re nice,” she says softly, trying again for conversation with him, because it was actually really nice, not snapping and complaining to each other. He is slouched and silent, and she’s worried whatever ground they’ve made will fall away from beneath her feet, but then he chuckles.

“Yeah, they’re all right folks,” he says at last. “Didn’t give me near as much shit as I thought they would,” he mutters to himself as he gets to his feet, tugging on the knot at the back of his head until the hair unwinds and falls around his shoulders, and he winces as he rubs his fingers against his scalp.

“About what?” she asks, and he looks down at her, studies her in silence for several moments. Sandor is unreadable, gray eyes dark in the shadow of his height and his undone hair; finally he huffs a laugh, shakes his head and turns away.

“Nothing. Get some rest, you’re gonna have to eat a lot of crow tomorrow after all that shit you talked,” he rumbles as he pads across the room, and she grins because he has _no_ idea. She’s not great with horses, is decent on a bicycle, but she kicks _ass_ on a quad.

“Goodnight, Sandor,” she says, and before he disappears down the hall he glances back.

“Goodnight, Sansa,” he says, and when he’s gone she grins to herself, because it’s probably only the second or third time he’s called her by her first name. She pulls her phone out of the inside pocket of her hoody, nurses the last half glass of wine as she reads emails from Jeyne and Randa about window shopping for $500 high heels and touring art museums, as she types back about a quaint little greenhouse full of desert plants and the big bad wolf who tends them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 5 picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102623416553/bex-morealli-vanillacoconuts)

He wakes at dawn as he usually does, and because the windows in his room face south and west the light is a soft, muzzy gray, the color of a classic movie. It is enough to pull him from his slumber, and so Sandor opens his eyes, staring out at the world of black and white, wondering when, in the course of the night, he dragged one of his pillows to his chest. He inhales deeply as he sits up, tossing the pillow to the mattress and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, the rug a familiar scuff beneath his feet.

There is the ache across his shoulders and down his spine that is always there at the end of the week, and he bows his head, tucking his chin to his chest in an attempt to stretch himself out before he gets to his feet. Sandor shrugs into an old flannel bathrobe and heads to the kitchen for coffee, his bare feet a quiet shuffle on the concrete floor. He pauses by Genna’s door, slowly twisting the door knob until he can ease her door open in silence, and she is on her back like a starfish, one little leg hanging off the edge of the bed, her face turned towards him with her jaw slack from sleep. Sandor grins with a shake of his head and retreats back to the hall, closing the door with naught but a whisper. She used to sleep curled up in the fetal position, a frightened, lonely little ball of sorrow, has slowly but surely opened up to their new life together much the way he has, and it makes him think of blossoms spreading open for sunlight.

Sansa’s door is closed, and though he does not stop beside it he takes the time to look at it, and Sandor cannot help but wonder how _she_ sleeps, and then he’s thinking of last night in the greenhouse, the thickness of the air between them, how she drew a line in the sand and dared him to cross it. _She’s got teeth, all right,_ he thinks as he spoons coffee grounds into the maker, _and she uses them._ He has underestimated her and feels bad about it, but at the same thinks she’d not stand her ground without being pushed. _Every light needs shadow. Or is it the other way around?_

He’s as quiet as he can be when he unlocks and opens the front door, the crisp spring morning air waking him up as much as his cup of coffee will, and he sits on the wrought iron park bench on the front porch to wait for the sun to fully rise, a ritual he used to perform every morning, spring, summer, autumn and winter. But little girls don’t sit still for the sun when they wake as early as he does, and so it’s been replaced with drives to daycare or sitting around watching cartoons. Sansa’s arrival has changed it all over again, and she’s on his mind once more as he sips his coffee. _Right now you’re just being a bully,_ he hears in her breathless voice, wine on her tongue, the greenhouse light casting half her face in a yellow glow, the other in shadow. _Like me,_ he muses, watching the horizon light up from the rising sun.

He sets his coffee down at his feet, wincing from the burn of muscle between his shoulder blades. Sandor tries rubbing his back against the slats of the bench but it’s no use, and finally he’s resorting to pressing his back against the corner of the porch, which is where he is when the front door opens and Sansa steps out with her own cup of coffee. He looks over in surprise but the corner of the house is actually doing some good to the sore spot beneath his right shoulder blade, so he doesn’t stop his bizarre up-down-side-to-side, even when she throws her head back and laughs at him. She’s a rumple of hair and jersey bathrobe pulled over a black undershirt and flannel pajama pants, and it does not escape his notice that they’re dressed practically the same.

“What’s so funny?” He grumbles, flinching as the corner catches a thick cord of aggravated muscle, and she tips her head to the side as she watches him in amusement, still chuckling.

“You look like a bear. A big old bear scratching his back on a tree. Don’t you have a back scratcher or something?”

“It’s not an itch, thank you very much, it’s a sore back. Goes with the territory when you’re digging holes and hauling 40 gallon trees around all week,” he says, turning away from her to watch the sun, and he smiles once it has fully broken free from the horizon and casts her lacy rays across the sky and scatter of clouds, has almost forgotten he’s not standing alone until Sansa speaks again.

“You really love the sunrise, don’t you,” she says, curiosity adding an upturned lilt to her voice, and he nods without looking at her, because here’s _more_ sharing, and he isn’t typically a generous person when it comes to parts of him, especially the secretive ones.

“I had the house built this way so I could enjoy both. The sunrise and sunset, I mean,” he says, voice gruff, gravelly, and he’s irritated to hear the shyness in it, but if she picks up on it she makes no mention of it. They stand there, a handful of feet apart, watching the sun slide up the sky, and now the underside of the clouds are painted in pastel pink and orange, and Sansa sighs happily.

“If that could be a color, all of it, I think it’d be my favorite,” she says, and he opens his mouth before he can help himself.

“It’s pink lemonade,” he blurts out, sounding like a moron, and he grits his teeth, pressing his back harder into the house. “At least that’s what I think of it as.” He glances to her and she’s looking at him strangely, a forgotten half smile on her face, left there like change on a restaurant table. She snaps back into herself before he can gruff out a _What’re you looking at_ , and then she’s shaking her head.

“Oh for Pete’s sake, come here. You look ridiculous and it can’t be doing that much good,” she says, crouching down to set her coffee by his before standing and walking towards him. He stops moving and stares at her with a frown because he is just a hair’s breadth away from understanding what she’s saying, for picking up on what she is suggesting. “Seriously, my mom got the worst backaches when Rickon and Bran were younger. Lots of lugging around sleepy boys from the car to the house, from the couch to the bed. I got pretty good at helping her out. It’ll be easier if you sit though,” she says with a grin. “You’re a lot taller than my mother.”

He sits in silence, sits in stupid, mute silence because what does he say? What _is_ there to say? He leans over his knees, elbows braced against his thighs for support, and he represses a shudder when he feels her fingertips skate across his shoulders, pulling his hair off his back and draping it over his shoulder. She tells him to take off the robe and he does so, muttering how this is nonsense, how it’s not necessary, but then she’s asking him where it hurts, and because it aches so acutely he gives in and he tells her. There is a light press of her fingers against his back, sending up a flare of pain, and just as he’s thinking that this won’t do a bit of good if it’s that timid, Sansa presses her thumb into the muscle, making him grunt with surprise and pain.

“There it is,” she murmurs, voice deep from distracted concentration, her left hand resting on the top of his left shoulder, and as she kneads into the sore muscles she grips him with the other hand to steady herself. She works in silence, her fingers and her knuckles running up and down, up and down, making him jump every now and then, and she’s right because the corner of the porch was nothing compared to this. Initially his thoughts roam to the last time a woman touched him with such intimacy, but it’s too hard to remember and too depressing to mull over, and eventually he’s not thinking of much at all, and he is lulled by the steady rhythm of her hands. When Sansa’s left hand slips off his shoulder and begins to knead into the muscles next to her right, Sandor closes his eyes and lets out the breath he was apparently holding.

He can tell from the increasing warmth from the sun that some time has passed but he is unsure of just how much; his brain is a thoughtless buzz of black and gray, the colors of dreamless sleep, but it leaps to life when her hands rise to the shoulder muscles on either side of his neck. His eyes fly open because his body is reacting to the close touch, to the way her fingers catch his hair draped over his right shoulder, how she presses her thumbs in and grips him with her fingertips. He can feel the crescents of fingernails through his t-shirt, is assaulted by images of other reasons why she might grab him by the shoulders, and he sees a parted mouth with his mind’s eye, head tipped back, a fistful of auburn, and he bites back a groan. Sandor clears his throat and sits back, the movement interrupting her administrations. He gives himself time to calm down by reaching over for his coffee, almost leaves hers down there, but then he’s twisting in his seat, handing the mug to her.

“Is that better?” she asks with a smile, guileless and open, before sipping her coffee. He huffs a laugh and nods, minds his manners and thanks her. “Did I almost put you to sleep? Sometimes I could knock my mom out better than Nyquil,” and he stands, shaking his head at her. _She must have no idea, no clue about what she is,_ he thinks.

“No, Poppins, you didn’t put me to sleep.” _Quite the opposite,_ he thinks with a sigh as he throws his bathrobe over his forearm, gesturing her inside under the pretense of checking on Genna. He thinks of the greenhouse and the feel of her hands on him, how his back _does_ feel better, he thinks of how she stuck her tongue out at him and stands up to him, and he thinks he’s in deep, deep shit.

 

He laughs at her when she emerges from her room, wearing cutoff shorts and an old button down shirt of her dad’s that she’s had since high school, her old Whitworth University baseball hat and her trusty knee high galoshes.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he says, sitting at the counter as Genna hacks into a waffle covered in syrup. He’s in jeans and a plaid shirt unbuttoned over a white t-shirt with his hair tied back in a ponytail. Though the scarred side of his face is nearest to her, she finds herself momentarily taken aback by the very masculinity of him, realizing now that there’s a very real and very raw beauty to him that she’s just beginning to understand. And now she knows exactly how muscled he is and she thinks maybe she was too forward, moving the massage up to his shoulders, recalling with embarrassment how it startled him. She couldn’t help herself, not after he let loose that sigh, slumped forward from the relief she was providing. _He was so warm,_ she thinks, because he was; she could feel it emanating through his t-shirt, and now she’s blushing while thinking of her boss. _My boss!_

 Sansa clears her throat hastily.

“They’re my um, you know, my s-h-i-t clothes,” she says, eyeing Genna for any reaction to her swearing. “And I don’t have super cool cowgirl boots like everyone and their mother out here. I’m from Washington, so I have these,” she says, lifting a foot and shaking it to and fro.

“I have cowgirl boots!” Genna says.

“Ooh, can I borrow them?” Sansa asks, and Genna shrieks with laughter at the idea of Sansa wearing her little boots.

She has an apple and granola bar for breakfast, and as Sandor and Genna head out to the garage to get the quads out she packs a few snacks and some bottles of water in a knapsack and heads out, locking the door behind her and sliding her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose. He’s got the quads lined up side by side in the driveway, facing out, and she grins; she’s been looking forward to this since last night, has been trying to remember everything she learned with Bran.

“All right, lady, you ready to wow me with your skills?” He’s wearing aviators and a dusty old cowboy hat, is sitting backwards on the back of one the quads with his arms folded across his chest, Genna standing behind him jumping up and down on the seat. _Damn,_ she thinks with a sigh. _He looks like he’s the Marlboro Man,_ but she steps forward bravely, reminding herself he signs her paychecks, reminding herself that she is thinking inappropriately, reminding herself that he probably thinks she’s just some empty headed young girl. _He calls you Poppins for God’s sake. Not exactly a great nickname._

“Are _you_ ready to get your mind blown?” She says with a grin, powerless to resist goading him, and he snorts a laugh with a shake of his head before he pushes himself to his feet. She slings the knapsack onto her back and straddles the quad next to his, pushes the start button and revs the engine, grinning at Genna. “Girls love four wheelers too, Gen, don’t ever forget it.” Sansa gets onto her knees, scooting back to kneel on the pillion seat at the very back of the quad.

“Wait, what the hell are you doing,” Sandor starts, and she glances over her shoulder at him, sees him frowning with concern. Robb taught her this trick, and though it’s been a couple of years since she’s done it she remembers it like it was yesterday.

“Blowing your mind,” Sansa says, and his eyebrows shoot up over the rims of his shades, making her laugh. She leans forward, gripping the handlebars, and puts it in first before squeezing the clutch and applying the gas. There is the terrifying thrill where it feels like the four wheeler will shoot out in front of her and knock her butt in the dirt, but then it rises to the back wheels, held down thanks to where she kneels, and then quad and girl alike fly forward on two wheels before she leans forward far enough to make the four wheeler slam back onto its front wheels, and she hops forward, sitting properly in the seat before driving off the driveway and down the slope towards his backyard. She realizes she is still laughing, can hear it over the rumble and purr of the engine, and she wheels around in a circle to head back up to Sandor and Genna.

“Well no shit,” he says with a grin and a shake of his head. “Little Miss Manners, Mary Poppins over here knows how to goon,” and then they’re both laughing.

“I have three brothers and a crazy sister, of course I know how to goon,” she says, referring to the term used for messing around and pulling stunts on a four wheeler. Sandor settles onto the other bike, waiting until Genna sits on his lap before hitting the start button. “Come on, lead the way, I want to see Bronn’s face when I jump on it while it’s moving.”

They cut through town and she’s able to see just how small it is; even at the relatively slower speed on the back of a four wheeler it seems to whip by in a heartbeat. The trucks and SUVs that drive by always slow down and give them a wide berth, and every time the driver sticks his hand out in a wave, returned in equal gesture by both Genna and Sandor, the latter’s plaid shirt billowed out from the wind. She finds she cannot stop smiling, not here in the land of sunshine and smiles, of friendly neighbors and the widest, bluest sky she’s ever seen. The clouds from that morning’s sunrise have disappeared into the ether and it’s a world of palest green and white grass, blue sky, the tan of dirt and the emerald of tall copses of trees that always seem to cluster around the houses they pass.

He gestures for her to ease off the gas by waving his hand up and down, and finally they turn onto a curving driveway leading up to a brick ranch house, long and low like Sandor’s, except here there is a walled in front yard full of rose bushes, and there are a dozen different shades of blooms; she can see the flight of a hundred bees who are utterly unconcerned by the sudden arrival of two loud machines, and to Sansa it’s like an oasis. There is a small fountain in the middle of the yard, burbling merrily, which she can hear once they hit the kill switches on the four wheelers.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, and Sandor nods, lifting Genna off the bike and setting her down. This is clearly a place she’s been before and is comfortable at, because she high tails it to the gate in the wall, unlatching it before galloping to the front door.

“Margie! Margie! Margie!” she calls out, hammering her little fist on the door. Sandor waits with his head bowed until Sansa walks around the quads towards the house, and only when she’s near him does he move, walking towards the front door at her side, and it makes her smile. She’s excited to get out of the house, excited to do some exploring, excited to spend more time with Margie. _I think I like it here,_ she muses, wondering if this place is starting to grow on her, if these people are starting to fill a void.

Bronn opens the door with a toothbrush in his mouth and minty green foam for a mustache, and he clutches his chest as if he suffers a broken heart when Genna shoves past him on the hunt for Margaery.

“She’s all that kid talked about on the ride over here,” Sandor says when Bronn steps back to let them in.

“Of course she was, with all the crap she buys that kid it’s no wonder. She’ll be calling Margie Santa Claus one of these days,” Bronn mumbles, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, and he excuses himself to go spit out his toothpaste and to tell Margaery to get dressed already. He tells them to go through to the kitchen for some iced tea, and Sandor points out the way for her, taking up the rear.

It’s a cool, dark, snug little home when she walks in. There are pictures _everywhere_ and the bottle-green vases of roses are almost as ubiquitous as the photography. She sees a lot of pictures of Bronn and of nature, a few of Margie herself but there are also pictures of Genna along the hallway, and one photo so striking it makes her stop suddenly enough that Sandor runs into her, and he has to catch her before she staggers forward and falls, he is that strong and solid of a man. His hands grasp her by the upper arms, and she rights herself hastily.

“What’s up?” he asks, his drifting, dropping grip on her leaving goose bumps in its wake, even though she wears long sleeves, and she smiles and points. It’s a photograph of him in an airport, walking down a corridor she knows now from her plane ride. She knows it’s him though he’s walking away from the camera because of his long ponytail, the broad expanse of his shoulders, and because she knows the little girl he’s holding, can see Genna’s little face burrowed against his neck, her arms a tight vise around him. The two of them are the only things in focus, and it’s so sharp she can see that Genna’s shoes are untied, the laces dangling down from the little feet that hang on either side of his body.

“Ah,” he says, and when she glances up he’s staring at it as well. “I haven’t uh, I haven’t actually seen that one. I didn’t even know she was taking pictures.”

“So they went with you to get her?” Because it’s the only thing it could be documenting, there in the airport. She knows from what little she’s heard that he went to get her and they’ve been holed up in Sonoita ever since. She turns to face him, and in the few moments of silence she can hear Genna laughing with Margaery. It seems to hit him too, because he _looks_ like he’s listening to it.

“It was a rough time, you know? I uh, I never got along with my brother, never even knew he had a kid. And then he got killed,” he starts, but Sansa gasps, interrupting him with her shock; she thinks of Bran’s close call with horror, remembers how they all cried with relief to know he’d make it out alive.

“Oh my God, that’s horrible!” Sandor laughs bitterly, shaking his head in his cowboy hat.

“No, it’s not, believe me. If only you knew. Anyways, I get news he was killed in combat overseas, and six months later Genna’s mom died. Cancer,” he says when he gazes down at her, reads the expression on her face. Sandor sighs and shrugs. “So, yeah, they came with me to Tulsa. They’re pains in the asses, but they’re good people. They helped me out. I just didn’t know she took this photo,” he says. “It wasn’t here the last time I was, there was some idiotic shit with belt buckles and spurs.”

Sansa looks at him, watches him a few moments longer as he looks at what is apparently his and Genna’s first family portrait, and he’s never an easy guy to read but he is clearly touched by the image, is so obviously moved by it, and when she eventually drifts down the hall into the kitchen, where the window over the sink shows even more rose bushes in the back, he is still standing, transfixed, staring at the moment when he became, whether he likes it or not, a father.

 

“So, Romeo, you spend some time under any balconies last night?” Bronn says, grinning with a piece of grass sticking out of his mouth, sounding and looking like the biggest hick Sandor’s ever seen. They are standing in the generous shade of an gnarled old oak tree watching Sansa try and teach Margaery how to pop the wheelie she did in his driveway, and there’s a lot of bending over and stretching forward going on, a lot of long leg in frayed shorts and ridiculous galoshes, and he hates how Bronn seems to put a voice to every lewd thought a man can have.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you,” Sandor says, taking off his hat and plunking it onto Genna’s head when she runs by. His thoughts splinter as he thinks of that photo in the hallway, watches as she laughs and gambols around, remembers the tears and the fear and how she is the only person in his life to _never_ double take at his mess of scars. She accepted him outright, the very moment she laid eyes on him. He doesn’t know how to repay her, but he thinks maybe loving her will do the trick, and that bringing Sansa here for her might be the icing on the cake considering how drastically Genna’s changed in the ten days since Mary Poppins has been here.

“Nothing’s wrong with me. What’s wrong with _you_? She’s a piece of pie walking around you, but you’re so hungry you don’t even realize it. Dig in and lick the spoon, man, what’s stopping you?” They are serenaded by the music of a growling four wheeler as Sansa and Margie come rumbling up.

“Cut it out, Bronn, you’re talking like a pig, and Genna’s right here,” he says. Bronn laughs and oinks, bending over in an attempt to tickle Sandor’s niece, and she screams and runs around the three quads parked in the shade. They’re close to a wash and the tree boughs are thick and healthy, blocking out the light and heat entirely, and it’s a welcome relief after four wheeling for nearly two hours under a relentless sun. Sansa proved she doesn’t talk shit and actually _knows_ her shit, and for some stupid reason he’s proud that it’s her teaching Margie the ropes and not the other way round. It’s hard, tearing his eyes from her as she goes round and around the flat spot of earth they’ve found, it’s hard not grinning when Sansa sends that four wheeler flying over the hump of dirt on the far edge of the field where the dirt becomes creek bank, making Margaery scream from the back of the quad.

“She’s just a kid,” Sandor says finally, grateful for the shade of the tree and of the brim of his hat to hide the flush that creeps up his chest and face, because he has not been thinking of her as a kid, lately. Now she’s sitting on the handlebars while Margie sits on the seat, but it’s Sansa steering the two of them, even though she’s perched like bird with her white frame sunglasses, her long, pale legs hitched up with her feet resting on the splash guards. Sandor looks away, and Bronn picks up on it.

“Brother, look back over there and tell me you’re staring at a kid,” Bronn says, gesturing with his bottle of Gatorade to the girls. _Women,_ he corrects. There are shrieks and laughter, and when Sansa’s baseball hat is whipped off her head by a sharp breeze her hair comes loose like a thousand licks of flame. She leaps off the quad and runs to pick up her hat, and they’re both afforded a backside view before she stands up and dashes back to the quad. Sansa looks over at them and waves, and she could sell four wheelers or baseball hats or oxygen itself if she wanted to. Sandor scowls. “She’s not a kid, she’s an adult. You’re just too big of a crotchety old bastard to let yourself see it. Not everyone has to be as stick-in-the-mud as you, you know.”

“I’m not a fucking stick in the mud, I’m her boss,” he says, leaning against the trunk of the tree. Margaery is behind the handlebars now, and she screams when she tries Sansa’s trick, and the four wheeler guns out from beneath her knees, overturning. Bronn bursts into laughter and Sansa laughs so hard she sinks to her knees and then her ass, head tossed back to let the sun shine down on her. He wonders about her skin, thinks about freckles, thinks about her hands on his shoulders and her fingers digging into his back, and suddenly he hates Bronn, because he’s making it impossible to be objective now.

Eventually the two women rumble up on the quad into the patch of shade, Margie hopping off the back as Sansa hits the kill switch; they are all breathless laughter, sweating and chattering away about being a couple of badasses, and there is a flurry of activity as Sansa unbuttons her men’s shirt and shrugs out of it, fanning herself. Margaery fusses over Sansa’s pale skin, demands Bronn hand over her bag so she can share her sunscreen, and he squats down to let Genna climb all over him as he avoids watching. She’s a handful of bundled up red hair clutched at the back of her neck, the quick rise of fall of her chest after so much exertion, and Marge grins at Bronn when she pushes the straps of Sansa’s tank top down to rub the sunscreen into her shoulders.

“For Chrissakes, Margie, give it a rest,” he mutters, but if any of them hear him they all ignore it.

 “At least you’re getting plenty of vitamin D,” Bronn says between chugs of Gatorade. “Plenty of D out here, huh Sandor?” and he chokes on his drink and his laughter when Sandor stands up and punches him in the arm. 

“Let’s drop off two of these stupid things at our place before we go have a drink,” Margaery says, bright eyed and seemingly innocuous after she chucks the sunscreen back in her bag, but Sandor has known her since she was fourteen and therefore he knows better than to assume innocence. He narrows his eyes and Marge catches it. “Hey, you said it last night, Sansa’s off the clock, and I want to have more than two drinks before I have to man a vehicle back home. You boys should drive us. We can even leave ours here and take yours. Bronny and I can walk home, I don’t mind. It’s only a couple of miles.”

 So it’s decided, because Margie has that wily grin of hers, because Sansa has stars in her eyes over her new friend, because Genna wants so badly to ride with Sansa. They cut through the fields they know have no fences to get to the wine bar, and he feels strange and wonderful and scared and amused to have Genna sitting in front of him with Sansa behind him. But if he thought she’d have her arms around him he’d be wrong, because she’s comfortable on a four wheeler, and sits with her hands braced on the edge of the pillion seat behind her ass, and whenever he glances back he sees her gazing left or right, her hair whipping in her face though she pays no mind. There’s a squeal in his ear when he turns onto the 82, however, and he can’t help but grin when she wraps an arm around his chest, grabs a fistful of shirt on his shoulder, and he wonders when he turned back into a teenager, because his heart pounds a little harder when she doesn’t let him go, even when the road straightens out, even when Bronn and Margie catch up and Bronn gives him a thumbs up, one Sandor very nearly returns.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 6 picset](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/102824829713/bex-morealli-jillypups-aaaand-this-is-for-the)
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> [Another one](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/102754763962/kiss-the-girl-by-jillypups-i-got-a-sneak-peak-at)

Sansa can’t quite bear the thought of letting him go, now that she’s got her arm around him, but she resists the overwhelming urge to rest her cheek against his back. He is solid, warm from the sun and the hot blood she knows courses in his veins, and it’s impossible not to dwell on the fact that he’s sitting between her legs. There’s some space between them but it’s still a truth she cannot deny, and she turns her face away from where Bronn and Marge ride beside them, biting her lip as she gazes at the tumbling landscape, listens to Genna try to scream a conversation with Margaery from the cradle of Sandor’s arms, tries to forget his close proximity.

His shirt is a soft, well-worn bundle in her fist, and when he kills the engine in the parking lot she’s sorry to let it go, but she takes the time to smooth it out against his shoulder. Sansa thinks of the sunrise and the feeling of his muscle in her hands, how she had wished he’d been shirtless as he so often is, how she wanted to get a closer look at the tattoos on his arms and chest and back. She’s blushing by the time she hops off of the four-wheeler, standing awkwardly as he remains seated, Genna pretending to drive from his lap, and he takes his sweet time cleaning the lenses of his aviators with the tail of his shirt.

“Well, you wowed them, just like you said you would,” he says with a grin, squinting up at her in the sun and she chuckles weakly, wondering why she can’t catch her breath all of a sudden, and she waves to Margie as they pull up, using the distraction to try and pull herself together.

“Yeah, well, I guess we all have a little redneck in us, huh,” she says, and then Bronn is coughing behind her. She turns on her heel to see Margie pounding his back as he hacks into his fist, still sitting astride the four-wheeler.

“Jesus, the jokes just write themselves, don’t they,” he wheezes, and while she knows he’s probably teasing her, she narrows her eyes because she doesn’t quite grasp  _how,_ not yet anyhow. Sandor gives his shoulder a shove when he walks past.

“Come on Genna, let’s get you some popcorn,” he says with his usual glower, and she’s skipping off ahead of them all into the building. It’s fairly nondescript, looks more like a house than a business from the outside, and Sansa sees it’s like that on the inside as well, much to her delight. It’s like walking into an eclectic living room with bright green sofas and chairs angled around a coffee table, and a long wood-top bar in the front of the room. It’s nothing like she expected, not with Sandor’s cowboy living room. There are a handful of people sitting around drinking wine even though it’s only 2pm, and Sansa grins to think of it, these neighborly people with no rules. A dark haired man looks up at her, and she blushes when she realizes he’s staring, even though she’s got her button down tied around her hips, is dusty and sweaty and smells like sunblock. He’s around her age and has an open, friendly looking face, though he’s currently got a little bit of the deer-in-headlights thing going on right now, at least until he clears his throat and stands.

“Hey guys, fancy seeing you here. You were just here last night,” he says with a smile to Bronn and Margaery, once he tears his eyes off of her. Margaery looks massively amused.

“So were you, goose, who cares? Podrick, this is Sansa, Sandor’s new nanny we’ve all been hearing about,” Margie says, and Sansa blinks, wondering how everyone seemingly knows about her, but then again, it’s a town of less than a thousand people, and she supposes even the arrival of au pairs is sensational news when it’s that remote out here.

“Hi, Podrick,” she says with a smile, holding out her hand, and when Pod chuckles nervously and runs his hand through his hair as he shakes her hand, Sandor rolls his eyes with a  _Christ almighty_  before striding over to the bar. She follows him with her eyes for a moment before remembering herself and looking back to Podrick. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, great to meet you too, Sansa, call me Pod,” he says, and then he nearly spills his wine when the man sitting in the arm chair beside them gives him a nudge. “Oh, sorry, this is um, this is Jaime and that’s Brienne,” he says, pointing first to the sandy-haired man and then to the blonde haired woman sitting across the coffee table. She’s  _tall,_ Sansa can tell even before she stands up and leans over to shake her hand, and Sansa likes her already. She’s a huge woman but gentle with her expressions, and her brilliant blue eyes are pretty enough to distract Sansa from the scar on her cheek.

“Hi Jaime, hi Brienne,” she says, getting a firmer handshake from Brienne than she did Podrick.

“Brienne breeds horses,” Margie says with a smile. “She lets me photograph her and the ponies sometimes, it’s nice. Jaime’s just a butthead, so don’t listen to anything he says.”

“Jaime works with me in the stables,” Brienne says, giving him a wry sort of look, her mouth twitched up in a half smile that makes her think of Sandor. Jaime finally stands, as if he can barely be bothered to introduce himself, and now she can see that he’s beyond attractive, like runway model hot, but when she holds out her hand he arches an eyebrow.

“I would if I could, sugar, but if you want to take a grip on it I won’t argue,” he says with a smirk, holding out what Sansa sees is an arm with a rounded stump where his wrist would have met his hand, if he had one. She gasps.

“Oh my God, I am  _so_ sorry,” she says, hands flying up to her mouth, and it’s Sansa Scars all over again, she is that mortified, but unlike Sandor’s reaction, Jaime just laughs.

“Don’t get all bent out of shape, honey, it’s not like you knew or anything. Don’t go around inspecting people for stumps before trying to shake their hands, not on my account,” but she’s still got a hand to her open mouth when he slings his left arm around Brienne’s waist. “Come on, cowgirl, let’s boogie. I need a nap after all that cabernet,” and she watches them leave, Jaime tucking his hand in the back pocket of her jeans.

“Wow, he’s um,” she says, waving her hand in the air, lost for words at his simultaneous dismissiveness and intensity.

“Singular,” Bronn says with an eye roll. “Although I have to admit he bounced back pretty quickly from the accident,” and as they tell Pod it was nice seeing him he explains how Jaime lost his hand, an accident over at Barristan Selmy’s ranch involving a hay trailer, and by the time they walk outside, Sansa is wincing in sympathy behind her sunglasses.

Sandor’s sitting at a round patio table out back, comfortably slouched with his knees cocked out, and she’s just in time to see Genna take off her hot pink cowboy boots and socks, sitting at his feet as she is. She hops up to run around the flagstone patio, and Sansa approaches him as she calls out for Genna to be careful in her bare feet, even though there is a laugh in her throat to see the wild child in action.  _Just like Rickon was ten years ago,_  she thinks, remembering all the beheaded Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies painted like war horses, and she smiles.

“I got you white,” he says, gesturing to the sweating glass of wine standing beside a glass of red and a bowl of popcorn, and just that simple act of kindness takes away her words because it just isn’t like him, not the Sandor she knows, or  _thought_ she knew. She stares at the glass of white wine, the beads of condensation that turn into raindrops on a window as they slide down the sides of the glass to the stem. It reminds her of the warmth of his greenhouse, the crackle between them when he stepped into her, and now she’s  _really_  tongue tied.

“Where are your manners, huh?” He says as he kicks a chair out from under the table for her, its metal feet scraping loudly against the stone, and it’s gruff but it’s him, she gets that now, and it’s also above and beyond the way he was with her when she first met him. She looks at him but he’s a mystery under the shade of his hat and behind the mirror of his aviators; she can’t tell if he’s irritated or teasing her, not until he grins, and then she laughs.

“Thank you, Sandor, it was extremely gracious and absolutely out of character for you,” she says with lofty emphasis, and he lifts a hand to his heart as if she wounds him. It’s then that she realizes they’re alone. “Where did Margaery and Bronn go?”

“They’re still at the bar,” he says, gesturing through the open back door to where the bar is. “She’s got a couple of brothers in town and she’s talking to Willas, the older one, over there,” and when she turns around she can see them talking to a tall, slender man who leans heavily on a cane. When she turns back to him, Sansa lifts her glass to Sandor in cheers and in thanks, and he leans forward and picks up his glass, raising it in kind. They sip in silence, or relative silence considering the barnyard animal noises Genna is making as she drops a piece of popcorn into the small fish pond in the center of the patio.

“Knock it off, kid,” Sandor says.

“Okay, daddy,” she says with a sly grin, coming over for more popcorn, and Sandor nudges her on the butt with the toe of his work boot.

“‘Uncle,’ Genna,” Sansa says at the same time he does, and then she knows he’s looking at her, she can feel it, and they grin at each other as Genna shovels a handful of popcorn in her mouth. She thinks that he’s a lot more handsome when he smiles, likes him in his hat and his glasses with that lock of dark hair loosened and hanging by his temple, realizes where her thoughts have gone again, and she’s almost grateful Genna dumps the bowl of popcorn over because it breaks their gaze and sets her free from the impossible pull of him.

 

“Come meet Sansa,” he hears Margie say, and when they’ve finally picked up all the popcorn from the table and the ground, Sandor sits up to see Willas Tyrell limping towards them, his sister beaming at his side while Bronn carries out two empty glasses and a bottle of wine. Willas runs his old man’s farm that sprawls for acres and acres about ten miles out of town, and while he’s never been bothered by the man before, there is an eager way he’s eyeing Sansa that makes Sandor’s hackles raise.  _He’s as old as I am,_  he thinks with a sneer as he drinks his wine, as Sansa smiles and holds out her hand, as apparently all the men of Sonoita circle her like carrion birds around a fresh kill. Willas runs the farm from the inside, and his hands are soft as they gesture, as he smiles warmly to Sansa, and he makes Sandor feel like a backwoods hillbilly with dirt under his nails.

“How’re you doing these days, Sandor?” Willas says with another one of his easy smiles, and he asks about the nursery. Sandor snorts with a shrug.

“Dirt and roots, same as it’s always been,” he says, and he sees in his periphery that Sansa is frowning at him with a confused look on her face.

“He showed me his greenhouse last night,” Sansa says, smiling up at Willas. “It was so cool, he’s got a real talent for this sort of thing.”

“I’ll say,” Willas says. “He and Bronn completely transformed my grandmother’s garden over at Highgarden Farms,” and Sandor rolls his eyes at the name drop, as if she knows anything about the farm and its high rate of production. He scowls when she runs her fingers through her wind-whipped hair, pulling out the tangles.  _Jesus, why don’t you just bat your goddamned eyelashes at him,_  he thinks, draining his wine and standing.

“Genna needs more popcorn,” he says roughly, and Sansa looks up at him but he ignores her because he is embarrassed and he is  _jealous_ , and he is mad at himself for both of those.

“Ease up, buddy, you look like a thunder cloud over there,” Bronn hisses when he passes them by, pouring the wine into his and Margie’s glasses without even sitting down.

“Who gives a shit,” Sandor mutters, but when he comes back with the popcorn and another glass of red wine Willas is heading past him to the parking lot, and he merely grunts when he says  _Later, Sandor._

“You’re getting quite the welcome wagon today,” he says, returning to his seat, using his foot to corral Genna’s shoes and socks under the table and out of the way.

“Yeah, from all of Sonoita’s wounded,” Bronn says with a laugh. “We roll rough out here, I guess. Let’s see, Jaime lost his hand, Brienne got bit in the face by an unbroken horse, Willas fell  _off_  a horse and busted up his leg, and then Sandor with his—”

“There’s nothing wrong with Sandor,” Sansa says, cutting him off quick as a flash, and they all of them look at her. Her jaw drops in shock at her little outburst, and Margaery laughs merrily with a clap of her hands. “Sorry, but he’s fine just the way he is,” she says, her cheeks red but her chin high, and Sandor is speechless. He stares at her, unable to look away from the tousle of her hair, the scatter of freckles on her shoulders, her long neck as she tips her head back to take a fortifying drink of wine. He wonders what she means. He hopes for one thing, acceptance, blindness to his deformity maybe, but fears it’s the other, the worst thing of all: pity.

“Well, I guess she put you in your place, honey,” Marge says with another tinkle of laughter, scooping up some popcorn before she rests back in her chair.

“Yes ma’am, she did,” grins Bronn. “So there you go,  _redneck,_ ” he says, raising his eyebrows, “you’re perfect just as you are, bad attitude and ugly tattoos and all,” and Sandor scoffs.

Sansa sits back in her chair, lifting one of her feet to rest it on the edge of her chair, and finally she gains the courage to look his way. She gives the tiniest of shrugs, and he wishes she weren’t in sunglasses so he could see her eyes.

“Thanks, Poppins,” he says quietly, and she waves him off as if it was nothing, as if it wasn’t the nicest way anyone has described him physically. He has a sudden urge to touch his scars, to see if they feel less grotesque than they did before, but he refuses to do so under Margaery’s hawkish gaze. His eyes wander over her, safe as he is behind his sunglasses, and land on the men’s shirt she has tied around her hips. Sandor leans forward and tugs the tail of it.

“Whose is this, by the way, a boyfriend’s or something?” The question makes her giggle and he grins, though it makes him feel like a wolf for taking a bite out of her after she was so nice about the scars, but then he’s always known he is something of an asshole.

“Oh my God, no, it’s my dad’s,” she says with a laugh, shaking her head. “I’ve never—” and there she stops short, looking at them all before busying herself with another swallow of wine, and in creeps the lovely blush.

“Never what, dated? Like at _all_?” _That’s Margie for you, asking the important questions_ , he thinks, because even Bronn is leaning forward, a look on his face that can only be described as busybody old biddy.

“No! God, you guys. Of course I’ve dated. I’ve just never um,” Sansa sighs, shaking her head with a mortified little smile on her face. He could be wrong, but he thinks she maybe slides a sneaky look his way from behind her shades. “I’ve never dated anyone who is big enough to fit in it,” she says, going for nonchalant lightness and it makes him laugh, because while it’s a big shirt to her it’s one that probably wouldn’t even button across his chest, and he is oddly proud of that fact.

“Hold me, babe, I don’t even know what to do with all of this,” Bronn says. Sansa glares at him, seems to pick up on the underlying meaning of all of his jokes, and Sandor’s about to cheerfully tell him to try fucking himself, but then there is a commotion rising up above the din of the mostly full patio.

“Hey! Who let their kid wade in the fucking fountain? Whose crazy kid is this?” Sandor whips his head around to find the source of the comment and sure enough standing by the fish pond is some chubby no-name, a day-tripper from Tucson  most likely, and he’s pointing to where Genna sits on the edge of the pond, her jeans tugged up to her knees, though they’re still wet from the way she’s kicking and splashing in the pond. Sandor narrows his eyes and stands.

“I mean, seriously, this kid is acting like a freakin’ dog right now, where are her parents?” and the P-word sets her off as it sometimes does, as well as the aggressive tone this asshole is using, and Genna bursts into tears. Anger blooms in his heart because yes, it’s always been a fertile field for that emotion, but also because she’s just an innocent child, and she’s  _his_ , and fucking _nobody_ talks like that about her.

Sandor stalks over and grabs her by the armpits, turning and hoisting her in his arms so she can fling her arms around his neck; her legs go up around his sides and he can feel the pond water soaking through his shirts. He spins on his heel to glare at the offender.

“ _I’m_  her parent, you son of a bitch,” he snarls over the trembling sobs that ring in his ear. “She’s my kid and if you’ve got a problem with her then you’ve got a problem with me,” he says, stepping into the man’s space, pushing his index finger into his shoulder. “And I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m a  _big_  fucking problem.”

“Hey man, look, I was just, you know, she looked unattended, that’s all,” he says, lifting his hands in surrender as he backs away from him, looking left and right for any support, but there is none.  _This is_ my _town, asshole,_  he thinks with grim satisfaction.

“Yeah, well, she  _is_ tended to, and if you talk to her or about her one more goddamned time then I’m going to tend to  _you,_  you understand?” The fat fucker just nods his head and slinks back to his table where his equally jowly wife hisses at him, staring fearfully at Sandor and he thinks  _Good. Be scared, bitch._

He storms back to their table, trying his damnedest to calm down, and where they all stared at Sansa before now they all stare at him, and he’s worried he offended her but she’s looking up at him with the ghost of a smile on her face. She pulls her white rimmed sunglasses down her nose an inch and he can see her eyes as he sits down, pulling Genna’s legs across his lap as she cries into his shoulder.

“What?” he asks rudely, because when he looks over Margie’s got the same soft feminine expression on her face, and Bronn is looking at him with frank admiration.

“You called her your kid, Sandor,” Marge murmurs, leaning forward to rest her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand as she gazes at him, eyes soft, all the mischief gone. “You said you were her parent, hon, and you’ve  _never_  said that.”

He thinks back and can only vaguely recall what he said because he was that angry, but then Sansa is nodding her head at him as if to confirm Margie’s words as truth. He tips his head to the side to look down at Genna, who is snotty and snuffling against the collar of his button down. Sandor sighs, and Sandor gives in to it.

“Yeah, well, so what if I did. She _is_ my kid and that guy can go fuck himself,” he says, and her skinny arms tighten around his neck, and he resigns himself to the fact that it’s a good feeling, resigns himself to the fact that it’s probably one of the  _best_ things he’s ever had the good fortune to feel.

 

She has a hard time sleeping that night, wakes and dozes in fits and starts, but she supposes it’s due to it being the busiest, most jam-packed day she’s had since she got here, and she even got to close it out with a phone call to her mother. Along with quads and wine bars, with new neighbors and Sandor’s coming to Genna’s rescue, her mind is full of details from back home. Rickon manages to raise hell even when he’s grounded, and Bran’s met a guy named Jojen at college and they hang out every weekend.  Her dad’s doing well and her mother’s started a book club; Robb’s met some girl and their mother is worried he’s going to elope he’s so smitten with her; Arya and Gendry signed up for the peace corps and will likely be heading out of the country in six weeks.

It’s a lot of news stacked on top of an already busy day, and she blames it all for the tossing and turning, but when it comes down to it, it is Sandor to whom her thoughts keep returning. He was ferocious, terrifying even with a little girl in his arms as he yelled at that jerk, but there was something about it that she has reluctantly come to call _sexy_ , because he swooped in to defend his niece, his _kid_ as he called her. _It was sexy,_ she thinks, staring up at the ceiling of her room in the dark. _Yeah, he’s my boss, and yeah, it was sexy, and that’s that. Nothing to it, no big deal, it is what it is._ But she’s worried because it’s a slippery slope, and before she knows it she could cultivate these realizations – he’s strong, he’s salt of the earth, he’s _sexy –_ into a serious crush, and that’s the last thing she wants. Romantic entanglements have not been her friend, lately, and she doesn’t want to get stuck in a similarly sticky situation.

“So what if he’s sexy,” she says out loud, going for bravery, for flippancy, in an attempt to address it and dismiss it, like listening to a song when it’s stuck in your head. “Lots of people are sexy,” she says, and she remembers Harry from college and how he used to make her swoon, used to make her giggle like an idiot to Jeyne, but all she sees when she conjures up the memory of him is a blandly good looking guy, blonde and blue eyed, shallow and superficial. She wonders if Harry would ever come to the defense of his niece, if he had one, and she decides probably not. It is not sexy, the image of him, and he is tied to the darker times at school, and is repellant to her now. Beric, the guy Jeyne dated her senior year, she used to think he was so good looking, but now, nope. Not sexy, and Sansa swears out loud as she squeezes her eyes shut and sits up, because her definition of that word has changed in an instant, or maybe in an afternoon, and therefore it has changed _everything._

Television. She’ll watch television, super low, and that will take her mind off of everything, off of him. She flips on the light by her bed, rummages through the small stack of her favorite movies she brought with her, realizing with mild embarrassment that all of them are romantic comedies, but she decides on French Kiss, switches off the light and heads for the hallway.

It’s pitch black out here because there is no grid of city lights to shine in from outside, and Sandor has yet to realize the benefit of nightlights with a little kid, but it’s something she is prepared for thanks to midnight trips to the bathroom. Her first night here she ran smack into the wall before finding the bathroom door but she’s gotten good at it, so it’s with relative confidence that she creeps out of her room. She expected the inky blackness of the place but did not expect to collide into anything, and when she realizes it’s a living, breathing human being she wants to scream.

“Get off me,” she shouts when he pins her to his chest with an arm around her waist, and her voice is shredded to ribbons with terror because this is clearly an intruder here in this dark house, and when he presses his hand to her mouth she immediately starts to cry. _I just talked to my mom,_ she thinks, sobbing against his hand, squirming in a futile attempt to escape. _She thinks I’m okay,_ she thinks, but then there’s the arm around her lifts and there is a hand on the back of her head, smoothing down her hair, and it’s too sweet, too gentle to be from one of the bad guys in this world.

“Sansa. Sansa, it’s okay, it’s just me,” Sandor says, voice rough and low as he whispers, and she wants to cry again from the overwhelming reassurance she feels just to hear his voice and to know it’s him. “Don’t scream, okay, you’ll wake Genna,” he says before slowly taking his hand away from her mouth, and she sags like a rag doll against his chest out of relief. “Jesus Christ, what’s come over you?” He is disembodied voice and warm, bare chest, a solid structure of muscle and skin, a strong arm around her holding her up.

“I thought, oh my God, I thought you were a burglar,” she says, voice hitching and cracking as she tries in vain to master herself, and he dutifully holds her up until she stands up and lightly pushes away from him to stand on her own two feet. His arm drops away, fingers a feather along her lower back as they leave her, and she’s sorry to feel it go, but then she remembers it was _him_ scaring the crap out of her, and so she reaches back up to his chest, feels the bulge of his pectoral under the curve of her hand and shoves him. He says _What the fuck_ in surprise. “And what the hell are you doing creeping around in the dark? You scared the hell out of me!” she hisses, embarrassed she let her imagination run so wild, mortified she cried against his palm. _I almost tasted him_ , she thinks, utterly unsure how she feels about that.

“ _Me_? You’re creeping around in the dark too, or did you forget that part?” he snaps, voice hoarse from the whisper. “Hold on a second. Try not to run into anything else and scream bloody murder, okay?” and then she’s standing alone in the black of his house, and it must be a new moon because there’s really not a scrap of light in here, not until he flips the switch in the kitchen, and she stands there, blinking in the sudden swell of light. He’s standing by the kitchen counter, staring at her with his arms folded across his chest. “So what’s up, prowler?”

She huffs and hugs herself, still not quite settled down from the scare, and drifts warily towards him, lowering onto one of the stools at the counter. She drops the DVD on the countertop and sighs. “I couldn’t sleep so I was going to watch a movie,” she says, pulling her hair over her shoulder. He peers over and snorts a laugh, making her narrow her eyes.

“What, a movie about making out?” he says, reading the title, and she laughs despite her irritation.

“No, it’s a movie about this girl and this guy, and they um, you know, fall in love. But it takes place in France,” she says hastily, “and I always wanted to go there, so it’s nice to see the um, the locations they go to,” and now he’s laughing as he fills two glasses of water.

“I’ll bet it is. Here you go, Frenchie,” he says, plunking down the water, taking a long sip of his before leaning over the counter on his elbows.

“So why are _you_ slinking around in the dark, huh? You own the place, there’s no reason to sneak around,” she says archly.

“I’ll have you know I was doing it to be nice, so I wouldn’t wake you two. I was up checking on Genna. It was pretty traumatic for her today, and I was worried she’d have a nightmare,” he says, head bowed, scars hidden from view by the fall of his loose hair, and something surges in her heart to hear his concern. It _was_ traumatic for Genna; she clung to him like a burr the rest of the afternoon, demanded he be the one to supervise her bath, he be the one to read to her, and this time Sansa’s presence was notably not required to read Sofia the First.

“Poor thing,” she says, and then she grins. “You nearly gave him a heart attack, you know,” she says, and he snorts.

“I wish I had, the bastard. Who the fuck talks like that to little kids?” and it makes her smile to hear him phrase it so crassly. He eyes her grumpily, but then he cracks a smile, rising up from the counter to drink his water. Her eyes fall to his bare chest, the same one she ran into, the muscle and hair of it and the tattoo across his right pectoral.

“Sandor,” she says, very nearly gasps, because she never studied him so closely, so unguardedly, has never noticed the scrawl across his body that says _Genna,_ and she hasn’t been here long but she recognizes the handwriting. “Is that- did Genna draw that?”

He looks down at himself, sweeping a hand self-consciously down his torso and shrugs. He is defensive and wary, she can tell already, could see the shift and switch almost the moment it happened. She will have to tread lightly, poking and prying into the inner workings of his thoughts and intentions. “Yeah, so?”

“Well, I think it’s really cool, that’s all,” she says as gently as she can, and she takes the opportunity to look him over, half of her devoted to discovering what his other tattoos are, half of her thrilling at the chance to stare so unabashedly at him.

She chips away at his resolve until he’s talking openly, and she learns the odd pattern on his right shoulder is the constellation for the Dog Star, because it is the brightest star in the sky, and she already knows how much he loves this big wide ocean of a sky. He turns for her, almost reluctantly, but there’s a gruff pride there as he discusses the artwork. He has a Nordic style dog on his left arm, covering it from elbow to shoulder, because he loves their loyalty and honesty; there is the outline of Arizona in the center of his back with a star where Sonoita is, and she thinks it’s nearly as sweet as the Genna tattoo, because it’s his home base, and she almost reaches out to touch it when his back is towards her. The most artistic, the most elegant, in her mind, however, is the bare tree snaking across the side of his ribcage on the right side, its roots as spidery as its naked boughs, and there is no reason to ask what it stands for, because it’s his livelihood and his passion.

“So yeah, you know, the scars were decided for me, but at least I can choose the ink,” he says with a serrated edge to his voice, and she frowns. There’s pain and anger in his voice when he turns away from her, refilling his water from the sink, and she’s scared he’s going to close down and shut her out again.

“What does that even mean, that they were decided for you? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking. I just assumed it was an accident.” She thinks they’re burns because not much else could cause that manipulation of flesh, wonders if he blames fire itself for it. Sandor sighs, bows his head and braces his hands on the edge of the farm sink, and it’s a mumble when he finally speaks, and the hesitation and bitterness in his voice nearly break her heart.

“When I was ten,” he says, staring out of the window above the sink into the blackness of the yard, and Sansa wonders if he’s staring into the past, “I went camping with my brother and his friends. They were in high school. I thought it was cool I was invited, but it turns out my dad made Gregor – my brother – bring me. My mom died when I was a baby,” he explains. “He was alone and my brother was a real piece of work, so I think he was tired a lot, and just wanted a night off.”

He’s still turned away from her, and she tells herself it’s so she can hear him better, but there’s more to it, selfish motivations that make her stand up and walk around the counter to him, and he starts when she leans against the counter at his side, back to the window, facing him, and finally he looks at her when he next speaks. Some unknown feeling slides up her spine when their eyes meet, and she holds his gaze with hers as he opens himself up; she thinks of the naked tree on his ribs, how it’s bare and dares people to look upon it, to see it for what it is.

“Gregor and his friends were all drinking skunky beer, getting rowdy, and he was always such a dick to me, I have no idea why I thought it was some sign that he was including his little brother on purpose. But I was bugging him about something, maybe wanting a beer of my own or another hot dog or whatever, I don’t uh, I don’t really remember. I don’t think I want to,” he says, fingers pulling his hair out of his face as he sighs, and then he braces his hands on the edge of the counter again as if he draws strength from the structure.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, Sandor, I’m sorry I asked,” she whispers, and he huffs, shakes his head, actually smiles ruefully down at her.

“Don’t be. I made it this far, I might as well get it out now. Haven’t uh, haven’t talked about it in a few years, that’s all,” and his eyes drop from hers to the hand she’s laid on top of his, and they both stare at the connection as he speaks; _Maybe he can draw strength from that,_ she thinks. His knuckles are sharp beneath her hand, and she tamps down the urge to run her fingers over them.

“So, I was bugging the shit out of him and when I turned away finally, he kicked me, hard. I fell face first into the campfire,” he murmurs to their hands, and she gasps so hard the back of her throat dries out.

“Sandor,” she whispers, horrified, beyond disturbed. She thinks of Robb doing that to her and can’t even conjure the image it is so deranged and cruel.

“Yeah, well,” he says with a shrug. “So I’m down there, and I can smell the ash, feel it suck up into my mouth as I’m screaming, but he pins me down. Boot to the back, holds me down until his friends pull him off and get me up,” he says, and she has tears in her eyes to imagine him, just a little boy trying to earn his big brother’s affection, being so horrifically tortured, and now everything about him falls into place: the defensiveness, the rudeness, the pushing people away, how it took months for even a sweet little kid to wriggle her way into his heart.

“I’m so sorry, Sandor. I’m so, so sorry. That’s _horrible,_ ” she says, looking at the misery in his eyes, the bitter twist of his mouth, the hair hanging in his face like flags of defeat. He lifts his gaze to hers, studying her face before he frowns, and he lifts his free hand halfway between them before it stops and returns to the counter.

“Are you crying for me, Sansa?” he says, a look of disbelieving wonder on his face, and she laughs thinly, wiping her eyes with her hands, and she feels the loss of their touch in an acute way, how it was a sort of anchor for them both as he opened up, let her dive into the deep dark pain of his past. But there’s no chance to get it back, because he’s moved his hands, stands up straight now as he looks at her.

“Yes, I guess I am. For ten year old you. For you now. It’s horrible. Like there aren’t even words to describe it.” They look at each other for some moments, and he looks so _lonely,_ so sad and so lost at sea, but then the tear in his guard stitches itself back up and he’s gone, the little boy, the soul of him hidden up once more.

“Yeah, well, we’ve all got some shit in our past that sucks, right? Maybe not for you, though, Mary Poppins. You seem to love your whole family, I bet you had family game nights and all that stuff, huh? Little house on the prairie girl, here,” It’s dismissive and hurtful that he thinks he has sole possession of pain, that because she’s got a good family she must be immune to the machinations of others.

“There are plenty of people in this world that can hurt you, Sandor, not just family,” she says with a snap, angry to be so discarded and pushed away, and she folds her arms across her chest and looks away from him, into the shadowed, dark living room. _I could be watching my movie right now,_ she thinks.

“Hey, I didn’t mean—” he starts, but she holds up her hand, and now she’s back at Whitworth, and she’s being called a whore, and she can see _his_ face, and she’s mad now.

“You didn’t mean to but you still did, just like everyone else,” she says sharply, and suddenly she remembers what he said to her in the airport, and there is vindication in how the tables have turned.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know how to do this, okay? I’m not, I don’t make friends, all right? I’m lucky I manage to keep them, actually,” he says, and she sighs, looking at him again. He shrugs and there’s a glimpse of the boy again, the unease and vulnerability, and Sansa speaks despite herself.

“You want to know why I answered your ad?” She says, and he’s taken aback by the alleged non sequitur. Sandor shakes his head.

“You wanted a job? I don’t know.” Sansa laughs at his cluelessness.

“You’re not the only one pushing people away, Sandor. You don’t like, own that. Other people run away too,” she says, and now he’s curious. He turns and mirrors her, leans against the counter with his arms across his chest, and side by side they regard each other. There’s something new now between them, and they’re wary like wild animals approaching the same stream to drink from.

“So tell me,” he says, and Sansa does. She tells him about Harry, bland, dimpled Harry with the girls falling to their knees in his wake, how swept up she was when they started dating. She tells him how they were together for two years before she realized he was screwing every woman who made eyes at him, though she leaves out the terrifying visit to the clinic, leaves out the very real fear that she’d contracted some disgusting thing from his dalliances and the subsequent, sobbing relief that she hadn’t.

“So I was crying a lot, those days,” she sighs, and he’s frowning, staring at the floor, jaw muscles working in the low light from the under-cabinet lights. “And one day, Professor Baelish saw me crying after class, and he took me out for coffee just off campus. I thought he was _so_ nice, Sandor. I can’t believe I fell for it. He’s not a Gregor by any means, but man, I guess I was like ten year old you, hoping for something that didn’t exist.”

“What- did he- shit, Sansa, he didn’t, you know. Did he?” He is crackling with intensity when she looks up at him, and she shakes her head vehemently.

“No. No, no, no, thank God, but he wanted to. Man, he wanted to, that sick pig,” she says. “He made a pass at me, right there in front of like fifty students. Hand on the thigh, kiss on the mouth. I pushed him away but the damage was done. I was the school slut for the rest of the semester. Lost almost all my friends except for Jeyne and Myranda, got hauled in to see the student counselors, all that stuff. No one believed me. My family did, but no one else did. They all thought I slept with him for the grade. I even dropped out of the class, and there was a bunch of drama with my loans over it, but even that didn’t prove my point. So when Jeyne went to Manhattan and Randa followed her by going to Copenhagen as fancy, sophisticated au pairs, I figured it was the easiest way to get out of Dodge, as they say. Just… put as many miles between me and that jerk as I could,” she says.

“And you ended up here,” he says, and she nods.

“Yeah. I ended up here, and I’m glad,” she says.                                                                              

“So am I,” he says, and she looks up at him sharply as he covers his tracks by taking a long drink of water. She’s thirsty too, and reaches over for her own glass, and they stand there in silence for several beats as they nurse their waters. _He’s glad I’m here,_ she thinks, trying not to smile.

“Jesus, what a cocksucker,” he finally mutters with a shake of his head, and she snorts.

“I think he was hoping _I_ was,” she says dryly, and he is so shocked he throws back his head and laughs until she shoves him and hisses for him to be quiet.

“I keep forgetting you’ve got teeth, Poppins. I’ve got to stop underestimating you,” he says, and it makes her happy to hear it. He asks a few more questions about her, finally finds out she’s got a degree in education and isn’t just some twenty-something with lofty ideas on raising kids, and she finds out he’s been on his own since high school after his dad died, that he lived with Bronn for the last year of high school and they’ve been friends ever since. He makes her yawn when he does, and that’s when she realizes with a jolt that they’ve been standing there talking for two hours and it’s nearly one o’clock in the morning.

“Fuck, I gotta be up in like five hours,” he says when she points to the clock on the microwave, scrubbing his face with his hands, ruffling up his beard, making her smile.

“You don’t have to, tomorrow’s Sunday,” she says, knowing he likely will anyways, and he shrugs noncommittally, confirming her suspicions. “So, Sandor, does this mean we’re friends now?” she asks, and he leans back to regard her, his folded arms dropping to his side as he studies her with a grin.

“Yeah, Poppins, I think it means we’re friends,” he says, and they say good night, and he waits until she’s back in her room before he turns the light off. “Don’t let the burglars bite,” he murmurs as he passes her closed door in the hall, making her grin, and then she realizes with the leaping of her heart into her throat that she _likes_ him, that she most certainly has a crush on her boss, the rough and tumble man with his niece’s name written on his skin, and while _Oh no, Sansa, don’t you dare_ rolls around and around in her head, she still falls asleep with the memory of the smell of his skin when he held her to his chest.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 7 picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/102964717568/chapter-7-of-kiss-the-girl-bex-morealli)   
>  [Another one :)](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/103014044233/jillypups-bex-morealli-not-too-sure-how-i-feel)   
>  [Another sexy as hell one](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103082508387/chapter-7-of-kiss-the-girl-i-didnt-even-get-the)

It’s blue light and black shadows when he pushes himself inside her, her hips rolling up, breasts pressed to his chest, and she moans  _Sandor_ with the rake of her nails down his back, and when he wakes up he is hard as rock.

“Jesus,” he groans, rolling onto his back, because he has these dreams nearly every night now, ever since running into her in the dark of night, feeling her hands on him as she squirmed in his grasp, feeling the softness of her breasts against his bare chest, the hot fog of her breath against his palm. Nearly every goddamn night, now, and it’s been a month since she bumped into him. He thinks he’s going to go crazy if he hasn’t already; he thinks he’s a dirty old man at thirty six, taking himself in his hand nearly every time he showers. Sandor looks at the clock; 3:45am, and there’s no way he’s getting back to sleep, hard as he is, so he closes his eyes and grits his teeth, and when he gets himself to come only moments later it is all he can do not to speak her name out loud.

She is everywhere now, in all factions of his life. He comes home to the warm, humid smell of shampoo on the air and to her watery footprints that track across the hall from bathroom to her closed bedroom door. He goes to Bronn’s for a beer after work and she is showing Genna how to braid by performing the task on Margie. He comes in from the greenhouse a sweating, dirty mess and she offers to rub his shoulders, something he has not the courage to suffer through again. He finally sinks into his work at the nursery and she’s rumbling up on the four-wheeler with Genna on her lap, bringing him the lunch he never can remember, both of them wide eyed and grinning with the breezes in their untamable hair. She is everywhere, always. She is the Disney songs she and Genna sing day and night, the songs that are eternally stuck in his head now regardless of how loud he blares his music in the truck. She is yoga in the backyard, perfect ass in the air before she sinks to a pushup, long back arching as she tips her head back to look at the sky. She is the clothes he’ll find in the dryer, slamming the door shut so fast he wonders if he imagined the glimpse of pink lace or sea foam green silk.

He is too terrified to open the door and confirm his suspicions.

She is at his work today as well, a blustery day colder than usual for April, because Bronn can’t shut his fucking mouth about her, especially since he told him about some of these hauntings of hers.

“Describe the yoga again, describe it to me. Margie does it, I can find out the position she was doing.” He’s replanting trees in bigger plastic pots, and he grins up at Sandor and Renly, who is glancing with interest between the two of them.

Sandor snarls at him to shut up, wanting to close his eyes against the images that crop up just at the mention of it. He hands Renly his change and slams the cash register shut.

“Yoga? Who’s doing yoga?” Renly asks in his U of A baseball hat and vintage cowboy shirt, chewing on the toothpick between his teeth, a habit almost as annoying as the smoking one he replaced with it.  

“Nobody,” Sandor says.

“Sandor’s hot nanny,” Bronn says, and Renly grins. He’s as bad as Bronn, as they all are, this town of gossips and upstarts, and his already handsome face takes on a devilish look that would charm the panties off of women if he tried it on them anymore, but that was back in high school so at least Sandor doesn’t have to be jealous of _him_ if Sansa ever meets him.

“I think I’ve seen her tearing around town on that quad,” he says, turning to face Bronn, leaning against the counter in the front of the nursery, and  Sandor sighs with a shake of his head. “Long red hair, right? I told Loras she was a looker but he didn’t believe me. Said something about beauty and the beast living together only in the movies,” and he laughs when Sandor glares at him. “Beast for the attitude problem more than the scars, buddy.”

“Oh, she’s a looker, all right,” Bronn says, shameless even with a girlfriend he’s had for fourteen years, ever since she was sixteen. “Legs a mile long even in rain boots, long enough to wrap around this big bastard if he’d ever get his head out of his ass and do something about it” he says, and the two idiots laugh and joke together, and even when Sandor shoves Renly's newly purchased half flat of snapdragons across the rough hewn counter towards his customer, he doesn’t take the hint. He heads down the length of the nursery and sees the empty spot he cleared away yesterday afternoon and remembers he forgot the Spanish bayonet he wanted to move over from his greenhouse, and the chance to escape the bawdy talk and insults is too tempting.

“I’ll leave you two frat boys, then,” he mutters, grabbing his hat and shades before opening the door and letting it slam behind him. There is a brief moment of silence from the nursery and then the explosion of men’s laughter, and Sandor rolls his eyes with a growl. Bronn has been relentless, and the way she’s slid into everyone’s lives mean there are more opportunities for his jokes and innuendos, for Margaery to fuss over Sansa, taking her shopping for cowboy boots and sundresses up in Tucson, and they invite him and Sansa over for dinner, out for drinks, out to go four-wheeling, and it feels like the saddest, cruelest sort of double date at best, or else he is the glowering, jealous odd man out at worst, when they laugh together and he tries his damnedest not to think about kissing those smiles right off her face.

She is everywhere, and he when he pulls his truck off the 83 towards the house she’s on the loop of gravel and dirt his driveway empties out onto, spinning Genna in a circle on the hilltop crown of empty road, her northern legs bare from rain boots to the hem of the big plaid jacket he keeps hanging on a hook by the door, and it’s a breathtaking vision. The sun is high overhead and the wind whips through the grasses all around them, and the red of her hair flies in the wind just as does Genna’s dark hair, as does the hot pink dress she’s wearing over her gray leggings. They are beautiful and they are _feminine_ , and it all just serves to make him sullen, here in this place of white grass and blue sky where Sansa and his niece pop like two bright flowers, flowers he has no idea how to tend.

“Oh, hi,” she says, stopping their spin when he drives past and parks in the driveway, out of breath from all the fun they’re apparently having. Genna comes trotting the minute he swings open his door and plants his feet on the drive, climbs up and into his lap as he takes off his hat and tosses it on the passenger side seat. Sansa approaches him as well but at a far more measured pace; there is no running and throwing herself in his arms from her.

“Hey,” he grunts, lifting Genna off his lap and standing to close his truck door. “I know I’m not the one with the fancy degree, but isn’t playing in the road a bad idea?” Sandor walks away from her towards the house, sees the front door is swung wide open. “And then there’s that,” he gestures to it before walking through, and he can he hear the scuff of her rain boots on the concrete before she shuts the door.

“I want corn dogs,” Genna says, heading right for the kitchen, where she immediately sits and takes off her shoes before crawling up onto one of the stools. How many times he’s stepped on a miniature Converse, he doesn’t know, because he has lost count, but while it’s a constant pain in the ass bending down to pick them up, it also tends to makes him smile, because it’s a direct mimicry of how he kicks off his boots whenever he comes home for the day.

“She ran out of the house after I forgot to lock the door,” she says, trying for kind though there is defensiveness to her voice. “And come on, Sandor, it’s not like this is exactly a busy side road or even a high traffic town. It’s barely two tire ruts in the grass out there,” she smiles, referring to the fact that only one other house’s driveway touches this loop of road and it’s two acres away.

“ _And_ you’re in my coat,” he snaps on his way to the back door, having no further argument for them being in the road, still wanting to worry her with his teeth a bit before letting go, and he tugs on the sleeve when she walks by to get Genna’s snack from the freezer. “Didn’t you just go clothes shopping in Tucson?” Like he doesn’t know she just went. Her absence was evident the entire day, in Genna’s crappy mood and how they just sat watching cartoons all day, in how nothing in the house seemed satisfying to look at without her there.

“You have to have carrots and tomatoes with these, okay?” she says gently to Genna, putting the mini dogs on a plate before microwaving them, and then she lifts her eyes to him, and she looks sheepish. She looks  _adorable,_  is what she looks, drowning in his huge coat, the cuffs hanging to her knuckles, the fringe of her shorts barely visible underneath, the length of her legs disappearing into her ridiculous rain boots.

“Sorry, I’ll take it off. It was just so cold outside with the wind and she was so quick, I just grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on,” she says, about to shrug out of the plaid, but then he sighs because he feels like an asshole and shakes his head.

“Never mind, it’s no big deal,” he says, gruff and embarrassed to be bickering over a jacket, stretching up to remove the pin from the sliding glass door. “I have to go get some plants and take them back, I’ll just be a minute and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Daddy can’t fit in my hair, daddy’s a too big man, isn’t he Sansa?” Genna says matter-of-factly before popping a cherry tomato in her mouth, and he’s not sure if he’s amused or mortified to hear her say in a strained sort of voice _Yes, Genna, your uncle Sandor is a very big man._ Probably both.

He gets distracted from the bayonets when he accidentally knocks over a Texas ranger shrub he left out in the walkway, and after cleaning up the dirt he figures it’s big enough to take down to the nursery now. He takes it up the hill and around the side of the house to his truck, the wind a howl against his face, dragging his hair loose from the hair tie at the base of his neck and flinging it in his eyes. It’s a welcome relief to get back into the still and silent peace of his greenhouse, but he’s still got his damned memories, and this sanctuary has been infiltrated too by red hair and blue eyes, long legs and a stubborn streak a mile wide. It’s why she’s on his mind again when he hauls up the pallet of Spanish bayonet and it’s probably why he misses the sound of the sliding door open. But he hears Sansa shout for Genna and realizes she’s probably made another run for it, and he can’t help but laugh to see his niece streak pell-mell down the slope past him.

“It’s ghost chase!” she shrieks because every day it’s a new name for bolting out of the house on Sansa’s watch, and next comes the au pair, a racing slash of auburn and red plaid and pale, pale legs, and he thinks she must be irritated because all he can hear out of her is _DANGIT GENNA I SAID NO RUNNING OUT OF THE HOUSE_. He’s smirking as he trucks the bayonets up the slope, but he freezes when he hears Genna scream.

“Ow, _fuck,_ ” he says when he turns around on his heel so fast he nearly loses his balance, and Sandor is impaled by four of the plants in his forearms, a dozen puncture wounds from their needle sharp fronds, and he wishes his flannel shirt wasn’t rolled up to the elbows, because now he’s bleeding like a stuck pig from both arms. “Genna!” he shouts as he sets the pallet on the ground, tearing off at a dead run in the direction they were headed, and his mind is a swirl of broken little girl bones and concussion, of coyotes and feral dogs, of cold blooded snakes too sluggish from the cold wind to escape, only left with their fangs to defend themselves. He’s bleeding and the pain from the poison in them makes his wounds throb but he doesn’t care, because his heart is in his throat and he is terrified.

 

“It’s okay, Genna, it’s okay, stop crying,” Sansa says, sitting on her butt with a hand outstretched to her charge, but Genna is staring at the blood and crying uncontrollably, and if Sansa could she’d run over and pick her up, but her ankle is killing her from her fall. Her knees are bloody from slamming down to the rocky soil, and she tries in vain to brush all of the pebbles and dirt from them, to maybe wipe away the blood and hide it from Genna. She managed to outrun Sansa until bursting through the fringe of trees that flank a skinny, shallow wash, and it’s in there she fell, the soft, loose bed too tricky to navigate in her oversized boots.

“Genna! Genna!” Sandor shouts, and in the slivered gap between two oak trees she can see him running towards them, all scruffy beard and dirty jeans, and she feels the air rush out of her lungs at the sight of him, and for half a moment she forget the throb in her ankle for the one in her heart. Sansa _knows_ he’s coming for his niece, because it was Genna who screamed, but a small part of her pretends he’s running to her and she doesn’t care if it’s childish, because her crush has only intensified over the past month. But she’s also embarrassed at her clumsiness, embarrassed to find herself in such a situation when it is her job to watch over Genna, who immediately abandons her at the sight and sound of her uncle.

“Sansa’s got owies and there’s blood and it’s scary,” she cries, and once he reaches the line of trees and underbrush he slows to a walk, his arm parting from his body to make room for his niece who burrows against the side of his thigh. His chest is heaving and he is, much to her horror, bleeding as well on his arms, looking like he ran through a pane of glass, though he quickly unrolls his shirtsleeves to cover the sight from Genna, who is still staring with concerned fear over at Sansa. She squints up at him as he towers above her and _Yes, Genna, your uncle Sandor is a very big man_ echoes in her head, and she thinks _yes. Yes he is._

“What happened, Sansa, are you okay?” he asks, picking his way down the short but steep bank on the edge of the wash, Genna by his side, and then he’s squatting down on his haunches beside her, pulling his sunglasses off his face to look at her with a frown. He’s worried and if she weren’t already knocked down in the dirt she’d be weak in the knees to see him gaze at her with worry, to look down at her with keen interest and none of that typical cynicism or closed off dry humor. It reminds her of the night in the kitchen together, the last time he really looked _open_ with her.

“I twisted my ankle trying to catch Little Miss Ghost Chase over here,” she says with an exasperated smile to Genna, who is hovering beside Sandor, her chin still a tremble, tear tracks shining on her face. Sandor chuckles with a shake of his head.

“You and those fucking boots. Margie took you for shitkickers, you should be in those, they’ll be a better fit than these things,” he says, tugging the loose top of her boot away from her calf with a finger.

“Yeah, yeah, save the lectures for the four year old,” she sniffs, making him laugh, and the sight of him sitting on his haunches in the sun, arms balancing on his bent knees, laughing with his hair half in his face makes her grin, but then she sees the red soaking through the blue and white of his sleeves, and she bites her lip with a frown.

“Are _you_ okay? Why are you, you know, b-l-e-e-d-i-n-g?” she asks, and he’s close enough that she can reach out and lift up the unbuttoned cuff of his flannel. _Why are all his shirts so soft_ she thinks, but then she can see a handful of puncture wounds, and his shirt has made the blood smear all across the skin and hair of his forearm. “ _Sandor,”_ she gasps, hastily patting down the sleeve when Genna asks what’s wrong.

“Nothing, kid, don’t worry about it. I just got dirty in the greenhouse,” he says to Genna, reaching up to tug a wild lock of her hair, and then he’s turning his attention back to Sansa. “We’re a real mess over here, aren’t we?” he grins and then he’s shrugging when she says _Sandor, what happened_. “I bumped into some yucca,” he says, as if that is just an everyday thing, as if running into things called yuccas is normal, but then she supposes for him it is. He glances at her knees and hisses his sympathy. “You’re all cut up, Poppins,” he says, using the unfolded arm of his aviators to gingerly brush the rest of the pebbles and grit off of her scrapes, and he flinches when she gasps in pain. “Sorry. So,” he says, glancing over his shoulder, clearly estimating the distance between the wash and the house. He turns back to her with a sigh. “Think you can you walk?”

“I definitely don’t want to do it alone in this _stupid_ wash,” she says, scuffing the sandy soil with the heel of her good leg, making him snort a laugh. “I’m sure with some help I could hobble up there, if you don’t mind,” she says, smiling as sweetly as she can with a twisted ankle and bloody knees. He scoffs.

“I’m not _that_ big of a dickhead,” he says. “Like I’d just leave you here and take Genna for ice cream or something.”

“We’re going for ice cream?” Genna asks, wiping her cheeks with dirty palms, eyes wide and hopeful.

He helps her out of the wash but it’s slow going, and the pressure along with gravity makes her ankle throb painfully enough that she goes at a snail’s pace.  She leans on him as hard as she dares, but after maybe fifteen feet of her limping heavily, clinging to his bicep to avoid the wounds on his forearm, he stops her with an impatient gesture.

“This is ridiculous, the sun will set by the time we make it home,” he says, and then he’s shaking his sleeves off his injuries and bending down. “Put your arm around me,” he says, and she obeys, draping her arm across his shoulders, not quite understanding, not until he surprises a little squeal out of her by lifting her up into his arms and hefting her in the air until she’s nestled against his chest; one arm is braced against her back, the other beneath the bend of her knees, and it’s _warm_ here, in the space of his embrace. _Not an embrace,_ she scolds herself, but she is unsure of what to call it, so Sansa decides to just enjoy it while it lasts, to pretend she doesn’t work for him, to pretend that they’re only friends and that’s it even though for her there’s more.

“But what about your arms?” she protests weakly, and he grunts over Genna’s demand that she get a ride back too.

“You think that’s the first time I’ve been poked by a cactus? I’m tougher than that, Poppins, give me a little credit. Besides, you’re light as a feather. Weigh as much as a little bird, I reckon,” he says and she has to look away from his face to keep from smiling, has to bite her lip and talk to Genna to keep her thoughts and fancy from running away with her, to ignore the fact that she is more than a little turned on right now. There is a thrilling moment when the little wild child scampers off behind them, and Sansa turns to look over Sandor’s back to find her, and her chin rests on the muscle of his shoulder. She can feel the motion of his strides through his body and the heat he possesses, the bend and curve of his arms around her, can smell the _man_ scent of him, sweat and Irish Spring, dirt and the sun, whatever he washes his hair with. Sansa wishes he would never let her go and her heart hurts because she knows he will.

“Where’d you go, huh? You falling asleep over there?” He cranes his neck to look at her and she gasps with a lift of her head when she realizes she never took her chin off of him, is now daydreaming with her cheek against his shoulder.

“Sorry, it’s just my ankle. It really hurts,” she says because at least it’s true, and when she faces forward once more she’s crestfallen to see they are nearly at the house.

Genna skips in as if nothing major happened, heading right for the sofa and the television, the trauma of her bloody knees over and forgotten, and Sandor carefully sets her down with a tip and twist of his torso that she can feel all along her side, though the arm across her back remains as she finds her footing, and she takes it as encouragement to keep her arm over his shoulder as she hops and hobbles and limps inside.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asks once he’s led her to the barstool nearest the door and after setting up a Netflix cartoon for Genna, his arms across his chest as he gazes down her over the rims of his sunglasses. Her gaze lowers and she arches a brow at his condescension, smirks when she points to his arms.

“What are you going to do with _yourself_ , more like it,” she says, and he looks down at his arms, turning them to and fro to inspect the damage, and then he unbuttons his shirt and shrugs out of it, standing there in a tight white crew neck. Sansa’s gaze does not stray. There is something sweet about the mess he’s made of himself, all to keep from upsetting and scaring Genna. “You look like you fought a wildcat,” she says, because he kind of does.

“Well, I did carry one,” he grins at her, taking off his sunglasses and setting them down before turning to wash himself off in the sink, and she’s actually rather proud of being referred to as such. “Go on, prop up that ankle on the other stool while I clean up. Goddammit,” he mutters, his back to her, “nasty little fuckers.”

“Did they go in really deeply or something?” She does as he bid and elevates her ankle after gingerly taking off her rain boot, and there is already a significant amount of swelling.

“Nah, they’ve just got this poison to them, and it’s not fun, let’s just say that.”

“Poison?!” She is horrified, but he’s laughing again after patting himself down with paper towels. Sandor fills a ziploc bag with ice and hands it to her.

“It’s not that big of a deal, just makes you ache a bit where they get you, is all. I’m a big boy, I’ll get over it,” he says, and then he’s handing her wet paper towels to clean up her knees before helping her to the sofa to sit by Genna. “Look, you two gonna be all right for a few minutes? I need to take these plants over to the nursery and let Bronn know I’ll be out for the rest of the day."

“Sandor, you don’t really have to do that,” she says, but he snorts with a shake of his head.

“You can barely walk, and if you think that wild thing next to you is going to take that into consideration, you’re wrong, unless she considers it an advantage. She’s already bolted on you twice today,” he says, locking the pin in place at the top of the sliding door, shrugging back into his bloodstained shirt and buttoning it as he walks to the door. He’s halfway outside before she calls out his name, and he glances back to her, pausing midstride.

“Thank you,” she says with a smile, and he shrugs.

“Don’t mention it, Little Bird,” he says with a sudden grin, making her heart race. “Just don’t fall off the couch and break a wing, you klutz,” and then he’s gone, and she hugs herself with a happy scowl on her face, trying and failing miserably to be insulted.

 _Little Bird, huh,_ she thinks with a grin as she stares sightlessly at Curious George on the television, burrowing into the warmth of his jacket, as Genna climbs up and stretches out on her. _Definitely a step up from Poppins._

 

It takes him longer than the twenty minutes he estimated it would, taking the time to help Bronn and Barristan load a few mimosas into the back of Selmy’s pickup, and they stand around shooting the shit for a few minutes after they ask about his bloodied shirtsleeves.

“That crazy bat Olenna won’t stop sending me casseroles,” Barristan says with a sigh, hitching up his Levis and gazing down the road. “That last one gave me the runs for two days straight. I wouldn’t mind except then she comes back over for her goddamn bake ware and stays for an hour,” he grins, and then the three of them laugh. “I think the old bird wants me for my money, though I don’t know what for. They’re rolling in it over there,” and Sandor rolls his eyes as he says his goodbyes because old Selmy isn’t doing too bad over there with his several thousand head of cattle.

His thoughts are a jumble as he starts his truck and backs out onto the 83 to head home, and he replays the events from just an hour ago; the sheer terror he felt when he thought Genna was hurt, the sight of Sansa hurt, sitting on her ass in the wash, the weight of her in his arms and the press of her cheek to his shoulder. He knows a twisted ankle and a couple of scrapes aren’t enough to warrant lightheadedness and part of him wants to hope she did it just because she wanted to, but then he remembers a smiling Podrick and a tall, handsome Willas sniffing around her, thinks there are far more likely candidates than him to snare her attention, even in this small town,

She’s right where he left her, more or less, still wearing that damned coat of his, and she has a couple of sofa pillows stacked under her ankle, is lying flat on her back with Genna curled up in the corner, her hand on Sansa’s temple as they watch cartoons. There is a squeal of _Daddy_ and the sound of Sansa’s fruitless attempt to correct her as the rug rat comes tearing across the room for him and she could never be accused of a lack of enthusiasm. It’s kind of nice, knowing he’s got the afternoon off, and Genna seems to appreciate the special treat of it as well, and she’s by his side for the rest of the day, rooting around the greenhouse with him, helping him – _well, “helping” –_ clear out some space in the garage for his workout equipment and some of the office stuff he cleared out for Sansa. He’s hauling weights from his room and out to the garage through the front door when she stops him.

“What are you doing?” she asks, sitting up and wincing as she turns her body to face him, dropping her legs to the floor. Sandor aims a 20lb weight at her.

“Put that foot up,” he barks at her, and though she narrows her eyes and sneers at him she does as he orders and then he disappears outside because Genna is still in the garage.

“Seriously, what are you doing? Are you going to go work out or something?” she asks once they return, ever insistent, and he notices that she’s spun herself around so she can face his direction while still heeding his demands.

“I’m moving all this shit out of my room. It looks like a thrift store back there, and I can’t stand the clutter anymore,” he says on his way back to his room, because it’s true, he loathes a cluttered, overstuffed house, is always overwhelmed at Bronn and Margie’s with the vases and flowers and photographs and all those _fucking_ throw pillows. There is a soft smile on her face, waiting there, patient as ever, when he comes back into the main room, pushing his weight rack on an old towel so it slides easier.

“Your world really turned upside down, didn’t it? With Genna, I mean. Genna and me,” she adds. Sansa is bare feet and legs, a single braid over one shoulder where her fingers are still busy, is soft wide eyes and an open, earnest expression, and if it weren’t for all of those things he would be exasperated. Well, he _is_ exasperated, but he would also lose his temper. Instead he just sighs, wipes his bicep across his forehead and stands up straight.

“Of course it did, Sansa,” he says. “In every single way you could possibly imagine,” he adds, and he can’t help but let his gaze linger as her expression changes in small ways that are hardly perceptible from across the room, and he can’t help but wonder if she truly understands him, before he turns and braces his hands against the end of the weight rack, continues shoving the thing out the door.

He manages to keep himself busy until the sun sets because that is the only time, in his mind, in his very make up, that seems acceptable to stop working, and then he showers and changes and Sandor thinks plopping down with Genna and Sansa on the sofa sounds extremely appealing.

“I was thinking, if I keep it really simple I’m sure I could put something together for dinner,” she says. “Too bad there’s no takeout here, huh?” She’s curled up in the corner now, having iced her ankle for a sufficient amount of time, but now she’s dragged one of the Mexican blankets off the back of the sofa and is burrowed with Genna under it.

“What, do you think I’m completely helpless over here? I’m thirty six, Little Bird, and I’ve been on my own for twenty years.” he says, popping his head in the fridge and taking quick inventory of the supplies in there. He pulls out bell peppers and onions and tosses them onto the island before taking out a chuck eye steak from the freezer. “I know you like white, but I only have red so you’re going to have to deal with it,” he says when he pulls a bottle from his pantry, and he chuckles when he sees her dumbfounded expression.

“I didn’t think you could cook,” she says, shaking her head with a frown. “You- I mean, I’ve been doing it for like six weeks.” Her voice is mystified and not accusing, and it’s because of that he doesn’t snap at her.

“I do, when there aren’t meddlesome redheads bustling around in my kitchen,” he says, eyebrows raised, popping the cork. “You gonna want some of this or what?” She nods, but still she looks flabbergasted. _Good,_ he thinks with a smirk. _Let someone else be surprised by what they find around here._

“But- but all the frozen food. And you never make yourself lunch,” she says as he walks a glass of wine to her. “You’re never in there,” she adds, thanking him for the glass.

“For the record, I don’t eat that shit in the freezer unless it’s steak, I got that for miss picky over here,” he says, making a monster face at Genna, who makes one back. “You were so eager to get in there, I just backed off and let you. As for lunch, I don’t know, I just have other shit on my mind I guess,” he says with a shrug before heading back to the kitchen, and as he chops vegetables he can feel her eyes on him more often than not, and he wonders at all of the things between them that are still unknown. _She thinks I’m an idiot who can’t feed himself,_ he thinks as the thawed steak sizzles and sears in the skillet, _so what_ else _have I gotten wrong about her?_

“These are _good,_ ” she says later after taking a bite of steak fajita, and he is pleased to hear it, to see how eagerly she attacks her plate of food, and he laughs when half of her food spills out the back end of her tortilla, can’t help but notice she hasn’t taken off that coat since she put it on that afternoon, and he wonders if it will smell like her once she finally gives it up.

They eat side by side with Genna curled up asleep between them, having already eaten her food, their feet propped up on the coffee table, plates and a shared blanket on their laps. He drinks red wine with her and watches her damnable movie she likes so much, and while yes, it’s amusing in its way, and yes, the French landscape is nice to look at, Sandor finds himself more distracted by her laugh, is more amused by how she’ll make him pause it to explain a scene, to try and _make_ him laugh along with her. She is all enthusiasm and insistence, all bubbly laughter despite a twisted ankle, and when the movie ends and it’s time to carry Genna to bed, time to help Sansa to her room, he is sorry to find that the night over, is all the lonelier after he finds himself alone in his bed, staring out of the window and the stars he can just make out. And then he remembers his dreams, and while they are normally torturous things, he’d be lying if he told himself he isn't half hoping to see her again in the blue light and black shadows of his longing.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF. I finished this earlier and I have to post it today.
> 
>  [picset!](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103091250317/kiss-the-girl-chapter-8-i-dont-even-know-what-im)
> 
> [And now with a picset, finally](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/103077618583/kiss-the-girl-chapter-8-feels-bex-morealli)

She’s back to normal after a few days of keeping to the house and, whenever Genna is home, making sure she is entertained with painting and coloring, dressing up paper dolls and her favorite activity: hacking into construction paper with her fat, plastic little scissors. It keeps her corralled not only to the house but to one part of it, and after two days of the kitchen counter being a mess of cuttings and trimmings and bizarrely shaped animal cut outs, Sandor buys an old wooden table off of someone in town, and she smiles when he hauls in not one or two chairs but three, mismatched but all made of the same heavy, dark wood as the table. Once he’s polished the set it is the most whimsical thing in his house outside of Genna’s room, and probably hers as well now that she’s outfitted it with plush, peach colored bedding and a glass lamp with gold mica flecked throughout. His world is already upside down, but it doesn’t seem to stop him from spiraling even further out of orbit, and the table is proof of that.

The evenings have all been in the same vein as the day she twisted her ankle and Genna, Sandor and she sit like three bumps on a log, the munchkin usually sprawled perpendicular across both their laps as they watch age appropriate movies, which, Sansa realizes with a thrill, are either princess movies or the romantic comedies she brought with her, and to his credit he does not complain, though he’s not exactly starry eyed the way she is by the end of them. He does make her watch The Godfather one night after Genna sleeps, and she surprises herself by enjoying it. Though she keeps her body curled up in the corner of the sofa he spreads both his arms across the back of the sofa like he’s king of the castle, the romantic movies they watch almost, _almost_ convince her to see how he’d react if she turned, straightened out beneath the curve of his arm that stretches out so invitingly towards her.

Tonight is different though, because she finally feels spry enough to try at least a walk if not a jog in the last of hazy dusky pink-gray light after the sun drops below the distant mountains and Sandor is finally home. It’s cool without the intensity of the Arizona sun but she relishes in the pump of blood once she feels comfortable in a slow, steady jog, and soon she’s warmed up from the exercise, is enjoying herself enough to be disappointed when the inevitable loss of light makes her turn back before she will be forced to stumble and pick her way home in the dark on a freshly healed injury. She heads up towards the driveway, is greeted by the globe of porch light waiting for her, and she likes how it seems to get eaten up by the silent darkness around them. There is a moon out tonight, fat and happy in the starry sky above her, and not for the first time does she feel well and truly at home here now, does it strike her how content she is to be here in Sonoita.

She’s careless when she walks in, pushing open the door without caution or ceremony, and is very nearly about to announce to the entire household that her run was a success – though mainly to Sandor, skeptical and cynical as he was – but then she catches sight of them on the sofa. Sansa has seen photographs of bare chested fathers cradling their naked newborns, has always _Awwwed_ at them along with Jeyne. There was something so sweet about skin to skin with a baby and a father _._ But the sight of Sandor, shirtless as always, sleeping on his back with Genna sprawled out on his chest makes Sansa breathe out _Ohh,_ and she’s drawn towards them despite herself, despite the fear of waking them. Genna’s arm is dangling towards the floor and she’s clutching that old black t-shirt of Sandor’s, the one that’s turned into a security blanket, and it’s a waterfall of jersey from her little fist down to the concrete below. It is beautiful and tender, these two half feral members of the same pack, these black haired, grey-eyed Cleganes with their own personal battle cries.

She can barely swallow a chuckle to see that she’s drooling all over her uncle, but she quietly crouches down beside them, brushing Genna’s cheek with a bent finger, drawing the black curls from the corner of her open mouth. _I should move her to her bed,_ Sansa thinks with a bite of her lip, wondering how she can do it without waking either of them. She stands swiftly and turns in silence on the tread of her running shoe, making sure Genna’s bed is turned down and there are no toys waiting to trip her up. When that’s done she returns to the sofa, half expecting one or both of them to be grumpily awake, and she smiles to think that he’s one man who could give a four year old a run for her money on being surly after a nap. But she has nothing to worry about, not with Genna’s recent string of playdates after school to give Sansa time to heal, not with Sandor turning soil for an enormous flower bed for the elementary school down the road, and taking care of her and Genna all week. They are both clearly exhausted, and out like lights.

 _He_ has _been taking care of me,_ she realizes with a little flip of her heart like a minnow in a stream; it has not struck her until now, and she has to push the thought away to _concentrate_ on gently, gingerly, without so much of a scrape of a pinky nail, slide her hands between their bodies, simultaneously cradling Genna while not pushing too hard on his chest or stomach, lest she startle him out of his slumber. Sansa grits her teeth and flexes the muscles of her arms, bending over them to get Genna close to her center of gravity as quickly as she can before standing, and she is grateful for learning at an early age how to manipulate the sack-of-potatoes body of a little kid, because soon she’s got his niece upright in her arms, head lolling in the space between her neck and shoulder.

“Night night, sweetie,” she whispers, brushing the hair from her forehead before landing a soft kiss there, and then she’s tiptoeing out of the little girl’s bedroom, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and shaking loose the sweat-damp length of it as she shrugs out of her running jacket and tosses it on the chair in her room, kicks out of her sneakers and pushes them into her closet with her foot. She stands in the center of her room, staring at the floor in silence, combing her hair with her fingers, and then she grins. “Oh, what the hell,” she says out loud, and then she’s back in the hall.

He’s still on his back though his hands have slid halfway up his torso for lack of a little niece to hold, and she’s jealous of them, of how his palms get to rest on the curve and the hair of his chest, the flowing-water-ripple of muscle down the plane of his stomach, and Sansa has to squeeze her hands into fists to control herself. _A blanket, I bet he needs a blanket, he’ll probably be here all night_ , she pretends to think of him even though it’s _herself_ she’s thinking of right now, because all Sansa wants is to look at Sandor. She takes the blanket off the other sofa and shakes it out before coming back to him, drapes it over his jean covered legs, testing the weight of it against the strength of his sleep, and when she’s satisfied of how the scales tip she pulls it up to his chest, coming down to her knees when it’s in place.

 _You’re not ferocious at all, are you, not really,_ she thinks with a smile, gazing down at the face that is turned towards her, because while the scars are there in the cheek presented to her, there is no scowl here now, no sardonic twist of his mouth or roll of his eyes. But she likes the intensity and the gray of his eyes, misses it even now in this moment that is all hers, and before she can help herself she’s tracing a fingertip along his hairline, down to where it disappears behind his ear, where the skin is gnarled and twisted. _Stop it Sansa,_ she says to herself, _this is uncalled for, this is_ wrong, _this is inappropriate,_ but she doesn’t even listen to herself, and two more fingertips join the index’s when she runs the touch down across his scarred cheek.

He inhales deeply at the touch and she gasps, but then Sandor _smiles,_ tipping his face into the touch, and she is _terrified_ that he is about to wake up and find her so close, to find her actually touching him as if she has the right or the invitation. _Get up idiot, get up, get up, get up,_ she thinks, feeling like a stupid girl, but before she can take her touch from him and get the hell out of there, one of his hands rises up from under the blanket. She freezes, staring at his face for any sign of waking up, and really, how he knows where she is without opening his eyes is almost as shocking as the touch, because he finds her neck with his hand as if he means to hold her in place. She thinks again of that night in the dark house when he pinned her to him, put a hand over her mouth, and now she’s as aroused as she is scared. But his fingers push up behind her ear to the base of her neck, and then he makes a fist in her hair so tight she tips her head into it, and there is a pounding pulse between her legs when he lets loose a low, faraway, dream-addled groan. _He’s dreaming, that’s all, dreaming of some cowgirl he knew once_ and it should repel her, really, that he touches her while thinking of another, but it’s such a sweet ache in her belly, such a lovely hold he’s got on her that her eyes slide closed and she must stifle a groan of her own.

“Sansa,” he murmurs, the deep-chested growl of some mythical beast girls are supposed to fear instead of crave, and her eyes fly open to hear her name on his lips in such a bizarre, dangerous, _erotic_ moment. She looks down at him, thinking _now_ he’s awake, that’s she’s caught like a bug in amber but no, Sandor still sleeps, adrift in something exquisite that she desperately wishes she could experience, and every ounce of the woman in her knows she wants to experience it with _him_.

 _Sandor,_ she thinks, too craven to say it out loud lest she break this spell, lest it makes his eyes open or worse, his hand loose its hold on her. But the relative moment in his dream passes because even when she lets her fingers move down his jaw so she can feel his beard, his grip on her loosens, and she feels the absence of his grasp and his possession so profoundly it steals her breath away. His hand drops to his chest, without purpose now, and he turns away from her with a sigh, her hand darting away just in time before she’s pinned between his jaw and the sofa cushion, and Sansa very nearly falls backwards onto her butt, but she masters herself in time to stand on shaking legs.

 _He said my name,_ she says over and over again as she showers, unable to shake the surreal scene, unable to forget the tight, greedy way he closed his fingers into her hair, the guttural want in his voice when he said _Sansa. He said my name, he grabbed my hair, he was_ dreaming _of me_ she thinks _,_ and she’s grinning at the thought of it when she rinses out her shampoo. But by the time the rest of her is clean and rinsed she’s back to the heart pounding _want_ it put into her, the hot feeling it spread throughout her body. She thinks of his beard, long enough to be soft under her fingers, and she imagines how it would feel if he kissed his way down her throat, how it would feel brushing down the length of her body, and her eyes are closed, her hands are sliding southward when there’s a thud of a knock on the bathroom door. Her hands fly off her body to brace against the tile wall she is that startled, and she cannot even speak, standing there under the steaming waterfall, she is that mortified. _He was awake, he was awake the whole time and now I will_ never _hear the end of it._

“Thanks for the blanket, Little Bird,” he says with a sleep-wrinkled voice, and she slumps, letting out a shaky breath of relief.

“Yeah, no problem,” she replies with a grin and closed eyes, and now tied up with the feel of his beard and that possessive fistful of hair she has the sound of his voice, and it’s the longest shower she has ever taken in her life.

 

 

**Sansa** : I think Sandor dreamed about me last night

**Sansa** : Hello? Sorry to bug you so early

**Margie** : Well of course he did! He’s crazy about you.

**Margie** : What makes you think that though?

**Sansa** : He said my name and reached out for me

**Margie** : Very hot! Were you in bed together already ;)

**Sansa** : No! God, Margie, he’s my boss, but…

**Margie** : But… ????

**Sansa** : I like him, a LOT, omg don’t tell him, please

**Margie** : I won’t tell him, but I think YOU should :D

**Sansa** : Omg I could never. No way, I don’t even know if he feels the same… and he is my BOSS

**Sansa** : Are you still there?

**Margie** : We should all go dancing. I bet if you asked him to go he’d say yes, and that would prove that he feels the same way

**Sansa** : How does that even prove anything?

**Margie** : With Sandor?! You think that guy would go to a nightclub for anyone less than the love of his life? I mean he gave you a nickname. Bronn’s nickname is asshole, for God’s sake and they’ve known each other over 20 years

**Sansa** : Lol oh so he gave me another nickname

**Margie** : Did he now?? Tell me :)

**Sansa** : No :P

**Margie** : Fine, if Sandor says your name in his dreams, gives you all kinds of nicknames,then it’s obviousto me, but I say if he gives you ONE MORE reason, you should ask him dancing

**Sansa** : Where? The convenience store? Lol there isn’t even a dance floor at Hops and Vines

**Margie** : Tucson of course. Club Congress, 80s night, this coming Monday

**Margie** : Hello?

**Margie** : Earth to Sansa

**Margie** : HELLOOOO

**Sansa** : Ok, fine, I’ll do it

 

“I swear baby, I am this close to locking them in the same room and throwing away the key,” Margaery says with a sigh, tossing her phone on the tangle of sheets at the foot of the bed before rolling back into Bronn, who is stretched out like a tiger of light and shadow beneath the pattern of sunlight painting his body through the bedroom blinds. It’s 8am on Saturday and she has been woken up by Sansa’s texts but was all too eager to sit bolt upright, shrugging off Bronn’s arm once she read what they were about. She’s got the wheels turning in her head, but now she wants to be curled up again with this tiger in their bed.

“Mm,” he says sleepily, pressing a kiss to her hair when she tucks herself in against his side, “I’m sure you’ll end up doing just that.” Now her arm is striped with light and shadow as she slides it across his stomach, sweeping it up to his chest, and it only takes a few kisses to his shoulder and collarbone before he mumbles and mutters, lowers the arm around her shoulders to press a palm to her lower back.

“Hi, Bronny,” she says, and she grins when his hand squeezes her ass before it slides back to her shoulder, sighs when the other hand finds a breast as he rolls her onto her back and finds his way around her. He’s all she’s ever known and all she’s ever wanted and the novelty still hasn’t worn off even after all these years.

“Hi, Margie,” he says between kisses, and the wheels in her head grind to a halt when he starts moving inside her, and it’s love here with him, where morning breezes pull the smell of roses into the room through the open window, to mingle with the sunlight on their skin.

“Hey, baby?” she asks some time later, cooking sausage and eggs in her underwear and one of his old ratty old baseball shirts from high school, and she raises her voice so he can hear her in the bathroom where he’s shaving.

“What?” Bronn says, and she can hear the swish of his razor in water, the _taptap_ of it against the ceramic sink.

“I want you to tell Sandor to come over today. Tell him I have roses for him to take to the nursery,” she gazes out back where all the roses are grown in pots and not in the earth like her front yard garden. She’s got a few she could let go of early, if he insists on taking some.

“Oh sure, next I’ll tell him to smile more, maybe wear some more pink in his wardrobe. It’s the weekend, sugar, he’s not going to come over here for work,” he hollers out before the sounds of running water and more splashing.

Margaery chews on this a moment, pushing the sausage patties around the skillet, and she huffs with exasperation because half the plan is in place but if she’s going to get it to work then he’s got to come over _today._ Sandor doesn’t do well with last minute plans.

“It’s not fair,” she says, sitting across from him at breakfast. “How was it so easy for us but is so stupid hard for them? They’re both blind as bats. Do you know he’s dreaming about her, saying her name out loud, and she _still_ isn’t sure he likes her? And the way they _look_ at each other. Oh my God, and let’s not forget Sansa saying Sandor is perfect the way he is, because if anyone is in need of an etiquette class it’s him. It’s so obvious they are into each other.”

Bronn shrugs, shovels half a sausage patty in his mouth and chases it down with a swig of coffee; he’s the same as he was when he was twenty and she couldn’t take her eyes off him, is still all relentless energy and boyish humor. She hopes he will never change. She prays he will never grow up. She studies him over her iced tea, rattles the ice once she’s drained it.

“You know him, he’s never been loved, not his whole life. Maybe his dad did but that old fart was too exhausted to show it. A man who’s never been loved has no idea how to show it, so maybe that’s why she’s unsure.”

“That is absolutely not true. Genna loves him with her whole heart. She thinks he hung the moon, for God’s sake, and we all know how much he loves her. He knows love, at least now,” she says, and Bronn shrugs and nods.

Margaery pushes her eggs around her plate, brooding and mulling before dropping her fork, snapping her fingers and pointing at Bronn. _Genna, of course,_ she thinks. He grins up at her, eyebrows raised, and he nudges her knee with his bare foot beneath the table, making her grin back.

“Here we go! My girl’s got her claws into some idea, hasn’t she? All right, Margie, spill your beans,” he says, picking up the last bit of sausage with his fingers and popping it in his mouth as he sits back in his chair.

“Text Sandor and tell him I’ve found someone who wants to buy that picture of him and Genna. That’ll get him here in a hot minute, faster than you can say ‘Sandor loves Sansa,’” she says, finally scooping a mound of eggs of her fork, and she devours the rest of her breakfast with triumphant gusto.

She was right, too, because she’s still fastening herself into a bra when she hears his truck roaring up, and she grabs Bronn before he goes out to greet his friend.

“It’s a little late for a quickie, sweetheart, but I can try my best,” he says, fingering the strap of her black bra. She swats him away, not that she isn’t grateful for the complimentary hunger in his eyes.

“Hey, does he ever nap or anything while you guys are working a job? A catnap under a tree, anything?”

“Well, yeah, we both do after lunch, now that Sansa’s feeding him,” Bronn says. He grins. “She makes him nicer sandwiches than you make me, you know,” and she rolls her eyes, pinching his arm. “Hey, you always said we have to be honest with each other.”

“When it calls for it, pig. Okay, now, go on, get out there and tell him the photo is off the wall and you think I’ve sold it behind your backs,” she says, squirming into her shirt, gazing down at the picture resting on their yet unmade bed. She smiles at it because it’s one of the finest photos she’s taken but also because it’s her friend and the little girl he loves, the little girl Margaery loves too, and she is determined to bring them together with the redhead they both adore. She drapes the duvet over the photo and hurries outside because she can already hear the explosion of Sandor’s temper once he kills the engine and slams his way out of the truck.

“Goddammit, woman, what did you do, did you sell that picture? Isn’t it illegal or something, selling photos of little kids without parental permission?” He is a storm of a man, striding in with the slap of her screen door in his wake, and she can hear him even from the back yard, can see him through the open window over the kitchen sink as he strides down the hall, glancing at the empty space on the wall. Margaery smirks. _I guess I can get the appeal,_ she thinks, imagining Sansa watching with wide eyes this giant of a man, all purpose, all smolder as he moves through the world, _but he’s nowhere near as fun as Bronn._ She flashes a one hundred watt smile and waves at him through the window.

“Morning, Sandor! I haven’t sold it yet, but come on out here, and grab the coffee grounds off the counter, I forgot them.” She can hear a string of _fucking goddamn meddling woman with her nose in every –_ before she hears the backdoor open and he’s got himself in check, holding the sodden coffee filter from Bronn’s three cups earlier. He is aviators and loose hair in a gray crew neck shirt and his Levis, but today he’s in his shitkickers instead of his work boots. _Yeah, Red, I get it, I get it,_ she thinks with a smile, and Margaery sends up a prayer that her plan works.

“You better not have made a deal for it, Marge, that’s beyond messed up,” he begins but she shakes her head, takes the coffee grounds from him to add to her compost, and Sandor brushes off his hands on his jeans. They’re great for her flowers, and she’ll be damned if anyone else in this town grows better roses than she does.

“Calm down honey, the owner of that photograph is standing right here, and the cost is just the delivery of one, singular rose,” she says, looking intently at two shrubs she’s standing between, but even with her eyes elsewhere she can still tell he is exasperated, likely _this_ close to losing his temper.

“Margaery,” he warns, and she sighs with a look up at him, arms akimbo with her clippers in one gloved hand. “What the fuck is this about?”

“It’s about you and it’s about Sansa. You are all she talks about, Bronn tells me you say her name when you’re out catnapping on lunch breaks, and I’ve had it up to here. I’ve always wanted you to fall for someone, but _Jesus,_ I had no idea how tedious it would be if you fell in love with someone as clueless as _you_ are.”

Sandor stares at her, mouth agape.

“You can’t _honestly_ think either of you are good at hiding it, can you?” She laughs, shaking her head as she circles first the shrub on the left, and then the shrub on the right.

“I’m not- you’re just- she talks about me?”

“Yep,” she says with a nod, fingering the outer petal of a still-closed bud. _Too closed off, not open enough. Something on the brink of blooming._ She finds what she wants and snips it, a long, graceful stem, and busies herself ridding it of its lower leaves.

“Well,” he says, rubbing the back of his head beneath the fall of black hair, “she doesn’t- I mean, huh.”

“Why does it surprise you, Sandor?”

“For fuck’s sake, Margie, are you kidding me? I’m an ugly, mean old man with a kid to take care of, I’m no good for her,” he snaps, arms folded across his chest, and he leans towards her as he talks as if to further prove the point.

“She thinks you’re perfect the way you are, Sandor, so why are you trying to make her decision for her? Kind of pig-headed if you ask me, no wonder you and Bronn are bosom buddies,” she says, moving to the other bush, and it’s perfect, how quickly she finds that brink-of-the-bloom bud, and she thinks how good she is at this, snipping it free with a sharp, decisive snip of her clippers.

“I’m not making the choice for her, there’s, I mean, oh Christ,” he sighs, staring at the ground, kicking up a few rocks with the toe of his boot.

“Which color suits her best, you think?” she says, holding out two nearly identical roses, one a blood red, the other a dusky, deep lavender, and he lifts his eyes to the buds, takes off his sunglasses to better study the colors because if there is something he takes seriously it’s plants. Her heart aches for him, because the conflict and clash of his wants and his typical self-denial is so painfully evident in his gray eyes. She smiles. _Gray like his shirt, and they stand out all the more for it. Sansa will swoon when she sees him._ Finally Sandor sighs again, lightly tapping the lavender with the stem of his sunglasses.

“That one,” he mutters, and she beams at him, handing it over.

“Perfect choice, honey,” she says, and he plucks it from her grasp, cradling the blossom in his hand, the stem dangling from between his middle two fingers, and he walks away from her, is halfway back to the house when he turns back. She’s seen him sad and scared, when Genna came into his life, happy on occasion and of course, angry, but for maybe the first time in her life she sees hesitancy and nervousness in Sandor’s expression, just before he slides his aviators back into place.

“Does she really talk about me, Margie, or are you just fucking with me?”

 

It’s still mid-morning and so the sun is neither too much in their eyes nor too hot for her skin, and it hides here and there behind clouds that scud briskly across the sky as if they if have a laundry list of errands to do. She and Genna lie on their backs on one of the old thick blankets Sandor keeps in his greenhouse, and she tries to see shapes in the clouds with Genna, but she keeps running her fingers along the quilting of the blanket, wondering what he uses them for. It’s not too big a stretch then to let her thoughts drift to last night, the feel of his warm, sun-tanned skin beneath her fingertips, the gnarl of scars that fascinated rather than repelled, the soft beard she touched before he stirred. _He took me in his hand,_ she thinks, _he said my name._

“Daddy!” Genna says, and she blinks, focuses, feeling guilty for fantasizing about her uncle right beside her, and Sansa peers up at the sky for a Sandor cloud, but then Genna is up and running, and she rolls on her side to see Genna blaze up the knoll towards the house, where Sandor is stepping out of the sliding glass door. Her mouth runs dry. She hasn’t seen him since last night, since she touched him and then herself between then and now, and the wild hare in her panics that he will somehow _know,_ that he will divine it out of her with just one look into her eyes. But he’s hoisting Genna in his arms, and growing in the center of her panic is warmth to see him kiss her on the cheek before setting her down, crouching to tell her something, and then she’s off like a shot into the house.

He heads down the hill towards the greenhouse, and Sansa is equal parts sorrow and relief that he does not head for her, but it all changes when he strays from the path and follows the slope of the hill to the flat little spot she and Genna picked out for cloud gazing. He holds something in his hand, a long stick protruding from between his fingers, and there’s no ten gallon hat, no flannel shirt rolled to his elbows, but she thinks _Cowboy_ just the same as he comes her way, realizes it is the culmination of everything she so far knows about him, and it all flies around her like dandelion fluff: his dirty jeans and the muscles in his arms, his faded old hat and his boots, his skill with Bronn’s horse and his love of the land. His strength, his _hands,_ she thinks, remembering how it fisted in her hair. In no time at all he’s standing over her, his hand still cupped around his prize, the other hand hooked by the thumb in the pocket of his jeans, and she is vaguely aware of hard she’s breathing as she squints up at him from behind her sunglasses.

“Hey,” she says, heart pounding, pulse throbbing in her veins, and she is about to shade her eyes with a hand but then he sinks down to her level into a squat, a forearm resting on his knee, that mysterious possession still cupped and hidden in his other hand. She inhales, catches the smell of his soap before a breeze takes it in the other direction.

“Hey, yourself,” he says, voice impossibly low and gruff like the thunder rolls back north, like the thunder she has yet to experience down here. She sits up with a hand braced behind her to the blanket, her legs folded to the side, and a gust of wind lifts up her sundress, and she is so distracted by his presence she doesn’t realize it until he reaches down, dragging the hem down her thigh to her knee, and she gasps beneath the touch, looks down to where his forefinger holds it in place, and Sansa quickly drops a hand to press the material to her leg. He is slow to remove his finger from the fabric, and self-consciously she tucks the skirt of her dress between her knees. She squeezes her thighs together.

“Thank you,” she breathes, thinking she will splinter into a thousand little shards of Sansa if she has to look up at him again, but she does it anyways because she is a glutton for punishment, because where else is she going to look? He is watching her, she can tell even with the impenetrable mirrors of his sunglasses between them.

“I saw this and I thought of you,” he says, and finally he extends his closed hand, fingers unfolding to reveal an exquisite lavender rose, and Sansa inhales sharply, looking up at him, and he reaches a little further, bringing the bud closer to her, and without thinking she closes her eyes and leans in, breathing in the sweetest, most intoxicating scent she’s ever gotten from a rose, and in a rush she exhales before opening her eyes.

“It’s perfect,” she murmurs, finally reaching out to grasp the stem, her hand a hair’s breadth above his, and when he relinquishes it to her possession his fingers stretch straight and brush the edge of her palm.

“I know,” he says, clearing his throat before standing. “That’s why it made me think of you,” he says before turning around to go back to the house, and his sudden withdrawal is the only thing that could tear her eyes from the loveliest rose she’s ever seen.

“Sandor,” she calls, looking up at his retreating figure, the panes of muscle and bone that make up his shoulder blades, wings of a beast on a strong, long back. He stops, waits a beat before turning to face her. His hands are in his pockets and his shoulders are up, but he takes two steps towards her. “Will you go dancing with me?”

He huffs, looks down at the ground before nodding his head as he turns again to go back to the house. “Yeah, Little Bird, I’ll go dancing with you.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS MADE ME DO IT.
> 
> I hope this is as fun as last chapter. I AM WORRIED.
> 
>  
> 
> [Picset!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/103155527863/kiss-the-girl-chapter-9-feels-vanillacoconuts)

_This is fucking ridiculous,_ he says to himself, staring at his reflection in his bathroom mirror in the handprint swipe he’s made through the fog. He is as nervous as a whore in church, and it makes him question everything, makes him wonder why in the hell he’s going to a nightclub in Tucson of all places, when his place is here in the earth and the sweep of plains. But then he sees with his mind’s eye Sansa close her eyes and lean to smell the rose and how her hair fell forward with the motion. He remembers the tangible ache he felt in his hand to just lift up and slide into her hair, to draw it behind her ear and grasp a handful of it at the back of her head and pull her towards him, lavender roses be damned, and now he’s half hard at just the thought.

“Pull yourself together,” he snaps to his mirror image, wrenching the towel from his hips to hang it over the shower curtain, and Sandor turns away from his reflection to get dressed, to stand in his underwear and stare into his closet, wondering what the hell you wear to a club these days. He can hear Margie and Bronn messing around with his stereo and then there is the swell of noise as some Pistol Annies song comes on. _That’ll be Margie,_ he thinks with a roll of his eyes, though he’s half surprised it’s not Billy Idol blasting through his speakers, considering where they’re going tonight.

He chooses clean jeans and a long sleeved black t-shirt, pushing the sleeves up to his elbows before shoving his feet into his boots and tying his damp hair back in a ponytail. He considers cologne and skips it, because he remembers she likes him the way he is, and that is a man who doesn’t fuss himself up like a woman. Sandor inhales sharply and rubs his beard before exhaling in a rush and opening his bedroom door, strides down the hallway as if he is all nonchalance instead of a bundle of nerves, but when he glances into Sansa’s room he sees her rose sitting in an wine bottle full of water on her nightstand, and he thinks words like _courage_ and _fortitude_.

“There he is,” Bronn says from his sofa beside Genna, drinking one of his beers with his feet kicked up on the coffee table, and Margie is trying to teach Sansa how to two-step. He grins despite himself, arms folded across his chest as he stands there watching her, is relieved she hasn’t put her hair up, and it swings as Margaery turns her, and he sees she’s in hip hugging jeans and a loose top with straps like strands of gold, and it’s a shimmering coppery bronze-ish color. It makes him think of mining the earth for metal and gemstones, makes him grateful she’s fallen like a star into his life, and when she trips and laughs, she finally glances up and meets his gaze.

It is like being struck by lightning.

“Hey,” she says, sweeping her hair over her shoulder where it drapes like a fall of autumn, and she’s breathless as she so often is, and he desperately wants it to be because of him, of what he could do to her if he only had the chance.

“Hey,” he says, and he’s unsure now of what to do. She lives here but it’s like picking up a woman for a date, not that he’s ever done it before, and he doesn’t know if he should shake her hand or hug her, wonders if he can step into her like he did in the greenhouse, wonders if he can kiss her this time.

“You look nice,” she says with a smile, fingers going to her hair when Margie lets her hand go. Sandor lets his eyes drop, allows himself to drink her in, and he is studious as he lifts his gaze from the toes of her boots and up the length of denim, the top that shimmers like water even though she stands still, and finally to her face. Her lips are parted as she looks back at him, her blue eyes ringed with black and dusted with smoke, and they pop out so brilliantly he smiles.

“You look stunning,” he says, making her smile widen when she thanks him, and then Bronn sighs.

“Oh for Chrissakes, we’re never gonna make it there, are we? Where the fuck is your brother anyway, it’s already 8:00.” Sandor shoots him a glare and he’s rolling his eyes dramatically, drinking his beer with vigor because Sandor’s truck is the only one big enough to seat four once he pulls out Genna’s booster seat, and therefore he’s the DD.

“You know, Sandor can probably teach you how to two-step better than I can,” Margie says, and it’s a wicked grin she flashes when he stares at her. “What, it’s true. I keep making her lead and I nearly just knocked her down on her ass,” she says with a shrug, turning to smile at Sansa. “He’s surprisingly light on his feet, for such a _big man,_ ” she adds, and Sandor contemplates knocking Margie down on _her_ ass.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Sansa says without taking her eyes off of Sandor, and she’s grinning with her lower lip caught between her teeth, making his gaze drop to her mouth. _One of these days that’s going to be me there,_ he vows. “So, you going to teach me or are you going to just stand there?”

“Teeth sharp as a wolf on you, huh, Poppins,” he says to her mouth, stepping towards her, and suddenly Margie drifts away and the music switches, and it’s Kris Kristofferson instead of that modern crap she loves so much.

“I prefer Little Bird, you know,” she murmurs, and he could get lost in the dip of her waist when his hand alights there, and then she’s sliding her hand into his where it awaits her, her other resting feather-light on his shoulder.

“So do I,” he says and Sandor thinks _Fuck it, fuck two stepping, fuck 80’s night,_ and he lowers his head to kiss her, and it feels like stars exploding in his heart when he sees her tilt her chin up, leaning in to him, ready and willing, knowing exactly what his intentions are. Her fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt on his shoulder and he presses his hand into her waist to draw her closer, making her eyes close, and then the front door swings open and Renly Baratheon barges in like he owns the place.

Her hands fly away from him like doves at the sudden intrusion, and the startle of it makes them both step away from each other. They turn in unison to face the doorway like teenagers caught necking in study hall.

“Where is she,” Renly exclaims, walking in with his arms outstretched, “where is that adorable little urchin?” Loras steps in after, closing the door behind him and he pushes past Renly, running in a crouched position to where Genna is scrambling down off the sofa.

“Loras!” she shrieks, and he lets her tackle him to the concrete, Margie’s brother laughing as she tickles him with tiny, ineffective fingers, and despite the cock-block of their arrival Sandor smiles, because he knows how those fingers feel, like being poked with chopsticks instead of getting tickled. But he has to hand it to Loras, who is laughing hysterically, trying in vain to bat her hands away.

“I could buy her a damned pony and she’d still like him more than me,” Renly says, coming to stand between Sandor and Sansa, which just about sums up the effect of his entrance, and he watches as she lifts her fingers to her mouth, brushing them across her lip as if she traces the kiss that died before it even happened.

“Yeah, well, keep pony-buying to a minimum tonight, all right?” he says, hoping Renly heeds him; they spoil her almost as badly as Margie does, with the excuse she’s basically family considering how close she is to Marge, and they stake nearly as much claim to calling themselves ‘uncle’ as Sandor does. “No candy, no staying up past 8:30, and make sure she goes to the bathroom before she goes to bed,” he clips, and Renly scoffs.

“What, like she’s the only kid we’ve ever babysat before,” he says loftily.

“She is _literally_ the only kid you’ve ever babysat before,” Sandor says, and Renly grins and shrugs to Sansa.

“Ready to go have fun in the big city?” he asks, and Sansa smiles.

“Yeah, actually, I’ve been up there shopping but I’m looking forward to a little nightlife. Not that I mind the quiet,” she says, lifting her eyes to Sandor, and he grins, because he gets what she’s telling him.

Genna practically ignores them when they leave she is so engrossed with her babysitters, and they are on their way to her room to play Barbies or Ponies or some shit when they close the door, and in no time they’re in the truck and on the road, Margie and Bronn in the back though Bronn is taller than Sansa and could use the leg room, and he’s grateful for his friend’s sly thinking. _Christ knows he should be clever by now, he’s been with Margie long enough,_ he thinks.

“All right,” Sandor says as he pulls the truck onto the 83, “let’s go to Tucson,” and when he glances to Sansa he catches her looking at his chest, but when her eyes lift to his she doesn’t even blush when she realizes she’s been caught, and he’s grinning until they get to the interstate.

 

 ** Margie: **  Holy shit that was sexy, I thought you guys were gonna make out right then and there!

 ** Sansa: **  ME TOO.

 ** Margie: **  I think I'm going to kill Renly.

 ** Sansa: **  ME TOO lol.

 ** Margie:   ** Are you going to kiss him tonight?

 ** Sansa: **  I will if he lets me.

 ** Margie:   ** Oh he'll let you. That look he gave you was hot enough to peel paint off a barn. I wish Bronn still gave me looks like that!

 

 

“Hey, I’m right here, woman, I can read what you’re texting about,” Bronn says from the backseat, and Sansa whips her head around to see Margie trying to keep her phone out of Bronn’s reaching, grappling hand.

“Get off of me, this is personal business!” she bats at his hands until he gives up, but then Bronn yells _HORSE BITE_ and Margaery shrieks with a curious mix of pain and laughter as he grabs her thigh. “Oh my god, let me go, let me go, ow, ow, ow!”

“What’s a horse bite?” she asks over the laughter and squabbling in the back seat, shaking her head as she looks at Sandor’s profile, and he glances to her with a devious grin on his face. Sansa sucks in a breath when his right hand leaves the wheel and reaches over the flat console between them, sliding over her left thigh until his fingers are snugly tucked between her legs, and then he squeezes her thigh, hard, his thumb running along the denim of her jeans in a move that she thinks has little to do with a horse bite. She lets out a shivery breath that shakes as if she is laughing or crying, and his hand on her makes her want to do both.

“That,” he says, squeezing her thigh once more before letting her go, and there is no air in her lungs, no blood in her veins, no bones in her body, but there is a throb between her legs that makes her want to curl her fingers into the passenger seat. “Except, you know, a lot harder,” he grins. The wake of sensation his hand has left on her _burns_ and Sansa is lightheaded, thinks she will never forget the feeling of his fingers burrowed between her thighs.

“Oh,” she murmurs, “Oh, I see,” and it sounds like she ran a marathon.

“I want a horse bite like Sandor’s,” Margie says from the back. “Why don’t you give me horse bites like that?”

“Because that shit was NC-17, young lady,” Bronn says with a laugh, “though I don’t think Sansa minded.”

 _No, no I didn’t,_ she thinks, grinning out at the flat landscape that stretches out, foreign and strange beneath the blanket of night sky.

“Wait, it says it’s a hotel,” she says once they’ve parked, pointing up the blazing neon sign above the building that says HOTEL CONGRESS in cherry red. It is a long stretch of building, taking up the entire short block between 4th and 5th avenue, and she can see the windows that go from above the doorway all the way to the end of the second story.

“It is,” Margie says as she slides a tube of lip gloss across her lower lip.

“But you called it Club Congress earlier,” she says, confused, and Bronn laughs.

“It’s both, sister. Come and see.”

Sandor takes her by the hand when they cross the street, and she feels branded by his touch when his fingers slide between hers. That slide of skin makes her think of naked lovers, makes her feel marked as his and she thinks she loves it, almost as much as when he tugs her closer to his side. She and Margie are carded before they enter the hotel lobby, and she doesn’t quite know where to look when they step inside, it is that busy with color and design and _life_.

There is Saltillo tile beneath their feet, glossy and the color of terra cotta, and Southwestern designs of bright turquoise and orange, yellows and purple all over the columns and walls, and the lobby is split between hotel function to the right, with a main desk and mail cubbies behind it, old fashioned keys hanging on hooks, and a bar area to the left, with a huge marble-topped bar against the back window and a scatter of round tables in front of it. There is a huge staircase across from the main desk, and down the length of the lobby is what she assumes is the front entrance off the street from which the hotel gets its name.

“Oh, wow,” she says, looking up and all around, taking it all in. Just inside the door there is an open doorway to what looks like a restaurant, and a neon sign above the door says Cup Café. “Damn, there’s a restaurant in here too?”

“Yep,” Sandor says. “And another bar off of the club. It’s been here since 1918 or 1919, I forget, but John Dillinger was caught here during a fire on the third floor,” and he laughs when her jaw drops.

“This place is epic, huh,” she says, and Margie nods with a grin, dragging her by the hand away from Sandor and out of his grasp. She looks back at him, sees his narrow-eyes smirk, and grins.

“Drinks may be only a dollar tonight, but they’re not gonna drink themselves, sugar,” she says, and Sansa is pulled from the softly lit lobby through a door into the darker confines of the club. The first room is like a grandiose modern day take of an old western saloon, with polished wood and brass lamp chandeliers, dim lighting and a huge bar that puts to shame the one in the lobby, with its massive horseshoe sprawl.

“There’s the Tap Room,” Margie points through a doorway to their left, and there is yet _another_ bar lined with stools, and a row of booths on the opposite wall. “It gets pretty crowded, and that’s the fastest place to get a drink once this place fills up.”

“Fills up?” Because it’s already pretty crowded, and there’s already a small swarm of people at the bar.

“Honey, it’s only 9:30! Wait ‘til eleven, it’ll be shoulder to shoulder. Or should I say cheek to cheek,” Margie says with a grin over her shoulder, and Sansa turns in time to see Sandor roll his eyes. She requests a greyhound when he asks what kind of drinks they want, Margie a cape cod, and she is left to look around, Marge moving her hips to the music as she people watches. Beyond the main room with the bar is a dance floor, and the room would be dark if it weren’t for the stage on the far wall, its red velvet curtains lit up with spotlights, and the spinning, wheeling lights that pulse in time to the Blondie song blaring from the speakers.

“All right, ladies,” Bronn says as he and Sandor bring over four drinks, and her fingers brush Sandor’s when she grabs her drink, and despite the ice in the glass his skin is still warm. “Which one of you silly women thinks she can out-dance me?”

“That’s easy enough, considering all you do is pogo until you get a headache,” Margie says, and everyone, even Sandor, laughs at that.

They manage to find a booth in the Tap Room and they drink and talk, and she grins at Margie when Sandor, sitting beside her with his shoulder against the wall, stretches his arm over the back of the booth. It’s not quite as intimate as the drape of Bronn’s arm across Marge’s shoulders but she’ll take it, and she grins to Margaery with the straw in her mouth when she feels his fingers brush the side of her hair. He nurses his bourbon and coke as it’s the only drink he will allow himself, and she wonders how it tastes on his tongue, wonders if she should just lean in and figure it out for herself, but then Margaery squeals.

“It’s ‘Girls’!” she screams, referring to the Beastie Boys song that has started playing, slamming the rest of her drink before grabbing Sansa’s hand. “We _have_ to dance to this!” She grabs hher by the hand and practically yanks her from her seat, and before she knows it Sansa’s on the dance floor, laughing hysterically as Margie puts the moves on her.

It’s lights and bass and the taste of vodka and grapefruit, it’s hair sticking to her neck and her temples and the sway of her hips to the music, and she knows she is beyond buzzed but she doesn’t even care. After what happened with Baelish she basically locked herself away in her room, ventured out for the movies with Jeyne or trips to the mall with Randa, but that was it. She hasn’t danced in over a year, and she never wants to stop, but no matter how hard she tries she can’t get Sandor on the dance floor.

“I two-step, Sansa, I don’t, uh, whatever that is,” he yells over the music, gesturing behind her to a guy who is doing, to her starry vision, what can only be described as interpretive dance. Sansa laughs as she looks back at him, and tugs on his forearm.

“Come on, you _said_ you’d go dancing with me,” she shouts, raising her eyebrows and giving him an imperious look. “Don’t break your word now, Sandor.”

“I said I’d go, I didn’t say I’d dance,” he grins, leaning in to talk in her ear. “I’m having too much fun watching _you_ dance,” he says, cupping his hand around her ear so she’ll hear him, and the touch of his hand, the side of his palm against her throat reminds her of his fist in her hair, and she shudders involuntarily, eyes sliding closed at the contact.

“No fair,” she shouts when he straightens, and he shrugs with a tip of his head, but he is still grinning. _He has been in high spirits the entire night,_ she thinks as Margie hands her another drink, and she grins as she swallows a mouthful, _and he hasn’t once taken his eyes off me._ It’s true; whenever she looks at him from across the dance floor to where he stands by the main bar he’s there, towering over everyone who gives him a wide berth due to the scars and the broad shoulders, the height and the burning gaze, his eyes always on her.

“Fuck this guy, _I’ll_ dance with you,” Bronn says with a grin, taking her drink and handing it to Sandor, and she laughs when he asks if he can call her Poppins.

 

“Your boyfriend is a dick,” Sandor says over the noise, watching them get swallowed into the crowd, but she’s tall enough in her boots to stick out above most of the others, her hair a beacon even in the dimly lit club.

“I know,” Margie shouts happily. “Isn’t he the best?” and Sandor snorts at her ardor.  “So what’s the deal, Sandor, huh? You practically undress each other at your house, you practically feel her up in the car, and now we’re here and you’re not even macking on her. Why don’t you, you know, go on up there and kiss the poor girl?” She gestures to the dance floor with her cocktail, likely her fifth or sixth considering how weakly they’re poured, and he sighs testily.

“I don’t mess around with drunk women, Margie, you of all people should know that,” he says, and she looks up at him sharply, mouth open. She grabs his arm and pulls on him, and Sandor catches a flip of auburn before he’s dragged through the Tap Room and outside on the patio. It’s still crowded but it’s blessedly quieter than inside, and he nearly runs smack into Margaery when she spins around to look at him.

“I’m sorry, Sandor,” she says, eyes wide and gaze intense from the liquor. “I completely forgot about that, that was _not_ my intention with Sansa. I just wanted you two to loosen up, I never meant to insinuate she had to be drunk to get with you,” she shakes her head and he sighs. It’s a rule he has upheld since the last woman he slept with almost a year ago, after they woke up in bed together and she nearly screamed when she saw the scars on his face. _I do_ not _remember that,_ she’d said, her hangover and shock letting the look of horror and fear slip through, and it was a bitter, twisting, hurtful drive home. He’s been the object of bets made by drunk women to see who dared to make a pass at him enough times that he doesn’t even miss the sex, not really, because at the end of the day the price of getting laid was his dignity, and he’s not interested in bartering with it anymore. Margaery hugs him all of a sudden, and he feels a small slop of cocktail against his back, and though she exasperates him half the time, he appreciates the gesture and returns it with a light pat to her back.

“It’s all right, for Chrissakes, don’t get all teary-eyed and fuck up all that makeup, now,” he gruffs, and she gives him a lopsided, watery grin when she draws back.

“Please just tell me that you _know_ Sansa likes you though. She has literally told me how much she likes you,” she says, and his eyebrows raise at the confession, and then she’s clapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh shit, I wasn’t supposed to tell you,” she says through her fingers, and Sandor laughs.

“I know I’m pretty clueless, but I think I can—” Sandor stops when Bronn emerges from Tap Room with a beer, and Sandor shoves his shoulder. “Where the fuck is Sansa?” Bronn shrugs as he swigs from his beer.

“I got separated from her on the dance floor so I came to find you guys,” he says. “I figured maybe she was with you two.” Sandor lets out a growl before shoving past him.

“Drunk asshole,” he says before pushing open the door.

“There goes my best friend in the whole world,” he hears along with Margie’s laughter before the door swings shut.

Sandor pushes through the throng of bodies towards the floor, though he doesn’t have to do much to get the crowd to part for him, and not for the first time is he thankful for his stature because it affords him a better view, an easier time of hunting her down. She’s also like a star in a wide, wide sky to him, is easy to find in the sea of dancing, bobbing bodies, and he narrows his eyes to see she is pushing away some guy, trying to be kind yet firm, failing at the latter and inspiring him to increase his efforts by the former.

She looks over her shoulder, gesturing his way, and the look of relief on her when she sees him face nearly makes him smile if he wasn’t so fucking pissed off right now, and when the guy, wearing some ironic t-shirt and Buddy Holly glasses, looks up at him, his hand drops from Sansa’s hip.

“I told you my boyfriend was here!” she shouts over the Dramarama song, stepping towards Sandor, and he stands behind her, looping his arms around her waist and drawing her against his chest. Her arms slide into place on top of his as if they have done this before, as if she is a permanent resident in the circle of his embrace when in truth this is the first time she’s visited.

“We got a problem here, tough guy?” he yells as he leans over Sansa’s shoulder.

“No way, man, I was just trying to dance, that’s all, I swear,” he shouts before turning tail and disappearing into the pulse of the crowd, and Sandor stares after him until she moves in his arms.

Sansa turns to face him and slings her arms over his shoulders, smiling dreamily up at him. “My hero,” she says. “Your timing was impeccable.”

“Happy to hear it,” he says, letting his arms loosen to rest his hands on her hips, and he suppresses a groan when the tips of her fingers toy with the hair at the nape of his neck beneath his ponytail, but when she presses her hips into his he can’t hold back, and though he can’t hear himself he can feel the moan escape him. Her hand presses against his neck, pulling him down so she can speak in his ear.

“This is where you kiss me, Sandor,” voice curling and sweet, and his eyes roll back in his head before they close, and it is a few moments before he has mastered himself well enough to speak.

“You’re drunk, Sansa,” he says when he lowers his mouth to her ear, “I don’t kiss drunk women,” and her hand moves from his neck to his jaw, her fingers raking through his beard, and his grasp on her hips tightens because _She is going to put me through my paces with this._

“No I’m not,” she says, pulling back to shake her head, and he laughs, lets his hands drop though it pains him to do it.

“I don’t kiss liars, either,” he grins, running the back of his knuckles down her arm before taking her hand in his, and he lifts it high above her head as he twirls her, her hair a low fan around her as she spins slowly on the toes of her boots. She is hips and breasts and long, long, legs, and he devours her with his eyes. _She’s a work of art_ , he thinks, _a living, breathing work of art._

“Then yes, I am drunk,” she says with a solemn nod, making him grin. “But I still want to kiss you,” and she lays a hand on his chest as she sighs, watching her hand as it sides down to his stomach. _She’s as hungry as I am,_ he thinks, and he swears he could kill Margie for pushing the drinks on her. Sandor lowers his head, cupping her face in one hand as he presses his lips to her forehead. Her lips are parted and her eyes are closed, her lids two sweeps of charcoal and black, when he pulls back, and he brings his mouth to her ear.

“Tell you what, Little Bird,” he murmurs as she’s swaying from the booze, maybe the heat between them also, and she fists his shirt in one hand and grips his shoulder in the other, head tilting into him as he speaks. “If you remember _that_ kiss, then I will kiss you again and again, lower and lower, until you beg me to stop,” and through the thrum of music and the pound of bass he can hear her gasp.

She’s tucked up under his arm when they leave the dance floor, cutting through the Tap Room to the patio where Margie and Bronn are making out.

“Come on, you guys, let’s get out of here. It’s midnight and you and I have about 200 flowers to plant tomorrow,” he says, nudging Bronn’s boot with his own, and his friend hauls himself to his feet, pulling Margie to hers. “You can always make out in the truck.”

And they do. It’s as bad as it was when she was in high school but he supposes that’s a good thing, but eventually Margie falls asleep against the window, he can see it in his rearview, and once Sansa nods off it’s largely a silent ride, but though she’s out cold she’s still got his hand in hers resting on her lap, and he’s happy to drive the rest of the way one handed.

Bronn thanks him for the ride when he pulls up to their house, and he’s forced to carry his intoxicated, sleepy girlfriend over his shoulder because she refuses to get out of the car, and Sandor laughs when Bronn flings open the screen door only to have it slap back against her head as he unlocks the door.

“Come on, up you go,” he says after parking the car and cutting the engine, opening the front door before jogging back to the car to help Sansa up. She has slumped against the console between the seats, head resting on her forearms, and he hopes her hangover tomorrow won’t be too bad. But even in her state she’s sweetness and charm, a drowsy smile on her face when he lifts her in his arms.

“Oh, good, I’m back up here again,” she says, head resting against his shoulder, and he grins as he carries her in the house.

“Well damn, Sandor, you wore her cute little butt out, huh,” Loras says from the sofa when he walks in with her, lightly kicking the door shut behind him.

“Margie got to her with the drinks, I see,” Renly grins. They are watching television on low volume, but he switches it off with a sigh as he stands, and they both clap him on the shoulder as they let themselves out, and Renly tells Sandor not to forget to feed the pony tied up out back.

“Come on, Sansa, time for bed,” he says, carrying her into her room, and Sandor swears that the next time he lays her on a bed he will be climbing in after her. She stretches before lurching forward to take her boots off, and he leans against her dresser, arms folded across his chest, watching with amusement as she struggles to yank them off, but then she’s free of her shitkickers and her socks, and then she’s back to a full body stretch along the length of her bed, twisting on her side and pulling the comforter up and over her. _Drunk as a sailor, still in her makeup and clothes, and she’s_ still _adorable._ He marvels at her power.

 “Good night,” she says with a drunken wiggling wave of her fingers before letting her hand drop to the pillow above her head, and he wonders what it would feel like to be above her, to pin her hand there and never set her free again.

“Good night,” he grins with a shake of his head as he turns to go, the edge of the door in his hand as he prepares to close it behind him.

"Oh, and Sandor?"

“Hmm?” He glances back to see her propped up on an elbow with her finger pointed in his direction, and he’s impressed that it only bobs and weaves a little. Her hair is a tumble against her shoulder and her sheets.

“I _will_ remember, and when you kiss me, I’m gonna make you feel so good, you’re gonna wonder why you never kissed me sooner,” she says with a heavy-lidded smile before blowing him a kiss, a promise, a rain check. He laughs and shakes his head because it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

“I don’t need to kiss you to wonder why I haven’t yet, Sansa. I already am.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ::stares at the ceiling, whistling::
> 
>  
> 
> [Picset to end all motherfucking picsets](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103278914612/kiss-the-girl-chapter-10-picset-i-told-jillypups)  
> [picset!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/103219325938/kiss-the-girl-chapter-10-feels)

She wakes to the smell of coffee and the soft click of the front door, and even half asleep she knows he’s up, knows he’s sitting outside to watch the sun rise before dressing and leaving for work, and she thinks about getting up to go out with him, but the faintest movement tells her that is a _bad_ idea. She smacks her lips and her mouth tastes like a dead animal, feels like she stuffed it full of cotton that somehow dissolved into her tongue and the roof of her mouth, but she is still too tired to go brush her teeth, and so she drifts back to sleep. There is something warm and tingling on the edge of her thoughts, something spine arching and sweet, but she thinks _Later, I’ll get to it later,_ and then she hunkers down into her pillow and closes her eyes again, lost once more to sleep and the sort of dreams that have flashed by all night, strobes of light, pounds of music, a hand on her face and a promise, some kind of promise.

When next she wakes it is to go to the bathroom, and the sight of her haggard, drawn face in the mirror is so horrifying she says _Fuck_ under her breath; eyes ringed like a raccoon’s and smudged in places all the way down to her cheeks, and her hair is matted on one side from her hardly moving all night. She is aware how lucky she is to suffer no headache or nausea, but there’s that taste of old booze and death on her tongue, and so the first thing she does after peeing is brush her teeth, and then scrub with soap and hot water at her face until the skin is pink from so much vigor. The water is clean as a spring and clear as his gray eyes, and the thought makes her smile as she pats dry her cleaned face.

She’s back in her room when she strips out of her clothes and pulls a loose tank top over her head, steps into some shorts before crawling back in bed and pulling the covers up to her chin, but her solitude is short lived. She can hear the creak of the door before she opens her eyes again, and there is the soft little smack of Genna feet on the cold concrete, the twist of her doorknob, and she lifts the sheet and comforter to let the girl in. They don’t speak but they snuggle into one another, Genna’s head beneath Sansa’s chin, and she smiles when her little fists pull up between them Sandor’s shirt. It is fitting, it is perfect and lovely to have his old shirt between them, between their hearts, and though it’s been weeks since Genna laid claim to it, Sansa likes to think she can still smell him in the fabric, and she falls back asleep with her arms around Genna, dreams now of sun-soaked skin and the scruff of a beard under her hand.

“Sansa, Sansa, Sansa, Sansa, Sansa, SANSA!” is what wakes her up the third and final time, and finally she opens her eyes and rolls onto her back with a ragged _WHAT_ , blinking blearily at Genna who is sitting on her legs. She smiles despite herself, lifting a hand to tousle the tangle on top of her head, and she is overwhelmingly relieved that she washed her face and changed her clothes before Sandor’s niece came into her bed.

“Can we watch the mermaid one? Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasethankyou,” she says, and Sansa laughs despite her exhaustion. “She’s got hair like you, Sansa, pleeeeeaaasssee,” she whines, and _there_ it is, the headache, coming up from within her head as if it climbs a spiral staircase. She nods with her eyes closed just to keep Genna from saying her name or _please_ again.

“And then Loras said the pony was really a dragon and Barbie was a knight and then Barbie RODE the dragon and then, and then, and then Renly said another pony was the bat-no-bill and everything exploded,” Genna says, machinegun-fire-quick over her bowl of Cheerios, as Sansa chases three Advil with her second cup of coffee.

“That’s wonderful,” Sansa mumbles as she leans over the counter, chin in her hand, watches the Cheerios float in her bowl of milk.

“And we played ghost hide and seek and we danced and they let me watch TV and then we had candy,” Genna says, and Sansa has to laugh because it sounds like Renly and Loras listened to Sandor about as much as Sandor used to listen to her. She chatters on cheerfully about Loras-this and Renly-that, how Renly let her draw all over his arms and Loras cuddled her until she fell asleep on the couch. Sansa wants to say that she could strangle Renly for his interruption, but she keeps quiet, waiting patiently for the throb of her headache to dull, and once Genna is ready for _The Little Mermaid_ she’s relatively pain free though she is still exhausted.

It’s a blur to her, really, because she’s reliving last night, replaying it over and over again in her mind, starting from that beautiful, heart-stopping moment just over there, between the fireplace and the front door, when Sandor was going to kiss her. She _knows_ he was going to, knew it and felt it from the tips of her toes to the juncture of her thighs, from the pit of her stomach to her heart that would not stop hammering. _The next time I see Renly I’m going to hit him,_ she thinks. Genna is a warm, little Cheerio scented weight against her as they cuddle up on the couch, and she drowses as she remembers his hand between her legs, the squeeze of his fingers on the soft flesh of her thigh, how he was always, always watching her. She vaguely remembers him twirling her but she definitely remembers saying goodnight to him, saying _something_ to him. Thoughts shift to dreams, fleeting things of his eyes on her, his hands on her, whispering into each other’s ears.

Sebastian the crab is singing to them, but then she hears _You’ve got to kiss the girl, why don’t you kiss the girl, you gotta kiss the girl, go on and kiss the girl,_ and Sansa sits up with a gasp, nearly knocking Genna to the floor. There was a guy, a pushy, handsy guy who reminded her of Petyr, and then there was Sandor. His arms around her, thick and strong, as menacing to the jerk as they were comforting to her, and that makes her grin, even as she helps Genna burrow back under the blanket and against her stomach. He was going to kiss her here at home, yes, but she wanted to kiss him at the club, pushed her hips into him, pulled him down so he could hear her beg, and she is stuck, is mired in that sticky, giddy middle ground between ballsy thrill and mortification. _You’re drunk,_ he said, and she claps a hand over her mouth in shock as she stares unseeing at Ariel. _I don’t kiss drunk women_ and when she groans audibly Genna shushes her with a grumpy look.

“Will you be okay if I shower?” she asks weakly, rising when Genna nods her head impatiently, eyes glued to the television, and Sansa double checks the pin in the sliding glass door, the deadbolt on the front door before she runs her shower, slumping against the closed door when she’s finally alone. “Oh, God, I asked him, I begged him,” she moans, face in her hands as she waits for the water to run hot, wanting nothing more than to wash off the embarrassment. She is standing stock still beneath the rush of water, head bent and eyes closed, when a memory struggles to the surface like a sprout from a seed pushing through soil, and Sansa lifts her head with a wide-eyed gasp.

“Oh my _God_.”

“So, tell me one more time, because I listen slow after five hours’ sleep, _why_ exactly didn’t you kiss her? Again, why didn’t you fuck her until the sun rose?” They are side by side on their hands and knees, spading holes in the watered, upturned earth outside of Sonoita Elementary, and despite his hangover Bronn is all questions and irritation, all invasion and insistence.

Sandor hurls a clod of wet earth at him, and to his credit, Bronn simply glances at his shoulder where the mud clings to his sleeve and goes back to work. His voice is stuttered from how vigorously he works, and if Sandor weren’t mistaken he’d say Bronn had some kind of fire lit under his ass.

“She was drunk,” he says with a grunt as he twists his spade into the ground. “I don’t fuck drunk women, okay? You remember that chick from that cowboy bar before it closed? Jesus,” he says, “that was fucking humiliating,” he sighs, stabbing the soil with his spade before tossing it aside to dig in with his bare hands, and then there is a _whunk_ of mud on the side of his head, and when he turns to Bronn he is actually shocked to see a look of anger on his friend’s face.

“Are you honestly _that_ fucking stupid? You can rage at me if you want, you can bitch out my Margie and be a general, all around son of a _bitch_ , but if you sit there with your sorry ass in the dirt and tell me you think a few drinks could change that woman’s mind about you, could make her ‘humiliate you,’ then you are the dumbest motherfucker I have _ever_ laid eyes on, and I look in the mirror every goddamn day.” Bronn chucks his spade onto the ground and unfolds his legs to stand. “You fucking idiot,” he says, throwing down his gloves before stalking back to their trucks.

“Hey, you know what, fuck you,” Sandor says, standing and throwing _his_ spade to the mostly empty flowerbed, following him. “You never lost half your face, okay? As ugly as you are you’re still a light year ahead of me. You’ve never been fucked only because the drunkest bitch at the bar _forgot your face,_ okay? So fuck you. I stand by my rules,” Sandor sneers, glaring at the rows and rows of flowers in his truck, and if he hadn’t raised those goddamn daises himself he’d fling them like a Frisbee across the front lawn.

“Your rules,” Bronn spits at him, wiping his chin after guzzling Gatorade. “Fuck your stupid rules, Sandor. She’s in _love_ with you, man, can’t you tell?”

“How the fuck would I know, Bronn? How in the fucking hell would I know what that feels like, hmm?” Sandor steps into him, and there’s a good six inch difference in height, but his friend doesn’t flinch, and with two hands to his chest Bronn braces his legs, flexes his arms and shoves him, sending Sandor staggering backwards.

“Yeah, you got hurt, you got fucked with your whole life,” Bronn says, advancing to cover the distance his shove put between them, and Sandor is gobsmacked to see him like this. “So why are you letting those cunts from last year, from five years ago, from _high school,_ getting between you and Sansa, huh? ‘Oh, she’s had a few drinks, she wanted to fuck my brains out before we left but now she’s had a cocktail, I shouldn’t touch her,’” Bronn says with his hands flapping in dramatic mockery, eyes rolling to the sky as he prances back and forth in front of Sandor. “You’ve been miserable since you were ten, dude, why the hell are you clinging to it, now that happiness has moved in down the hall, huh?” Bronn eases backwards until he’s sitting on his F-250’s tailgate, the sunlight glowing in his bottle of ultraviolet Gatorade.

“I can’t forget it, okay?” he says, sitting on the other side of the gate, one leg dangling, the foot of his other braced in the midst of grass and sotol, rock and soil. “I’ll never forget her face, the disgusted look she gave me.” And he won’t. It’s as seared into him as the grotesque tangle of flesh on his left cheek. They are dance partners, the memory of rejection twisting and spinning around with the ghost of burning flesh, the dissipation of a life he could have had.

“Why don’t you replace that bitch’s face with the face Sansa made at you in your house? Or the look she gives you when she says she likes you how you are? Or the one she makes when you jack off to her every night?” and Bronn shouts and winces, laughs and jumps away when Sandor flings his open water bottle at him.

“It’s different, all right?” Sandor says finally, heaving a sigh, feeling more tired than he should midday. “I don’t want to fuck it up, for the first time in my life.”

“Did you ever stop to think that being so stupid careful could fuck it up more than being hasty? I waited two years for Margie because she was a teenager, but it was terrifying, thinking she’d find some younger sack of shit with a better face and a bigger dick, but when I finally said ‘okay’ and she came running to me, man, I felt like life was on hold until then.”

“Lucky bastard. That was what, twelve years ago?” He’s sitting on the tailgate staring at the ground.

“Fourteen, actually,” Bronn says with a sniff, lifting his head and looking down the road away from Sandor. Sandor thinks back on when they first met, when there was this slip of a girl sipping iced tea through a straw, watching Bronn as he mowed her father’s expensive lawn as Sandor stared in disbelief at the look of adoration and determination on her face. Bronn was confused at first, but she wore him down with her little shorts and the sway of her hair, how she laughed at his jokes and his antics. “Fourteen years that my life’s been in play, man.”

“Fourteen years, and I’ve never even started,” Sandor mutters. Bronn laughs.

“It’s because you’re not letting yourself, you dumbass,” he says, and Sandor shakes his head with a chuckle, clears his throat, stands and sighs before looking to his friend. “Your play button is currently bouncing around your house.” He thinks of last night, how close they came to kissing, and now that he thinks back on it he does feel sort of stupid for pushing her away. _She’s in love with you, man._ How? How is that possible?

“You always know what to say, huh,” he says with a sigh. “I guess this is where I thank you, isn’t it?”

Bronn grins and pushes himself off the tailgate, slamming it shut. “If you thank me I’m gonna assume you’re smoking crack, because the last time you ever said that was when I let you sleep on the floor in my room after your old man died.”

Sandor is left to watch the retreating back of his friend, is left to think on his words, and it’s several moments before he snaps into himself and walks over to the two hundred yard flower bed, before he sinks to his knees beside Bronn, picking up his spade as if they did not have one of the more childish fights they’ve had over the past two decades.

“Thanks, man,” he says gruffly to the hole he pushes into existence with his fingers.

“S’what I’m here for, you grumpy son of a bitch,” and after that they work the rest of the day in amiable silence for the most part, and the dark, bitter past rolls around in Sandor’s head, rolls and tumbles and mixes with the image and the scent and the touch of a redhead with pale skin until it is all so tangled up and mired that he is lost and confused in his thoughts.

 

Sansa sits outside on the back porch watching the sun slide down the sky like a melting scoop of sherbet, orange and sweet, as Genna runs around with a wand, pretending it’s a sword and she is Sir Loras with a pet dragon. Sansa was invited to be the bat-no-bill but she declined with a laugh, still too tired from last night, still too tightly wound over the inevitability of Sandor coming home. She watches the sun like a clock, knows that when it dips below the purple-black line of mountain that he will be here, and she has absolutely no idea what to expect.

The past two hours have been a confliction of focusing her attention on Genna and on herself; she has changed her outfit twice, from yoga pants to jeans to finally a sundress and a long, baggy old cardigan she found at a thrift store up in Spokane, and it’s one of her prized possessions. She draws comfort and strength from it, burrows in it as she sits outside in the cooling air, bare feet tucked up on the edge of the chair. She is thinking about him, too, because it’s impossible not to, and she even crept down the hall to peer into his bedroom, something she has not done, not in the near two months she’s been here. It is an austere room but peaceful as a result of it, and the western windows let in the light and the sight of the world he so loves, and he has let that do the decorating for him. The room glows with sunlight, and aside from the photograph of him and Genna hanging above his dresser, it is the only frivolity to the room. His bedding is bone white with a soot gray comforter edged in black, his nightstands are the clean lines of mission style furniture, as is the dresser. It is all so very _him,_ and while she wanted to run and throw herself onto his bed, to find out if the smell of him lingered, she tiptoed back down the hall, feeling scandalous for even looking.

Sansa lets loose a wavering breath when the sun finally disappears and the world is washed in violet-gray light, and Genna looks like a haunting as she cavorts and frolics in the dying light, like a fae-child who has materialized from the ether. It is a magical time, dusk, and it makes her think dusky thoughts though she tries to push them away.

“Come on, sweetie, let’s go in, it’s dinner time,” she says, unfolding her legs to stand, the skirt of her dress a cool cotton swirl around her knees, making her shiver.

“I want dino chicken!” she cries as she bounds up to the house, and Sansa laughs as she pushes open the slider, letting Genna in first.

“Fine, but you’re having it with broccoli and carrots,” she says, turning to push the door shut, and then she hears _YAY DADDY YAY_ and Sansa spins around so fast her sweater slides off of her shoulder.

He is in the doorway, arms full of Genna, and he is tall, he is muddy knees with a streak of dirt across his cheek, he is white t-shirt and jeans and work boots, he is muscle and _want,_ and he is staring at her so intently it makes her lift a hand to her head because she is suddenly dizzy. It is a long, agonizing moment and neither of them move; the only motion is Genna as she wriggles like a puppy, seated in the crook his arm, and she realizes then that they can’t do anything, can’t so much as mention last night until Genna is in bed.

“Hi,” she whispers as if he were right here in front of her, even though there is the entire room between them, but he hears her, clears his throat as he hugs Genna before setting her down.

“Hey there,” he says finally, and how is she supposed to pretend it’s all as it was, under the shrewd eye of a four year old? _I will kiss you again and again, lower and lower, until you beg me to stop,_ and Sansa swallows, smiles weakly as she tries futilely to tamp down the mounting arousal that creeps in.

“I um, yeah, so I was just getting Genna’s dinner ready,” she says, hugging herself for courage as she finally moves, into the kitchen instead of into his arms where she wants to throw herself like a flag of surrender to the dirt. “Do you um, are you hungry?” She opens the freezer, staring blindly for several moments before shaking herself free and pulling out the chicken nuggets, and when she closes the freezer he is standing there, and she gasps, backs up against the kitchen island and he angles his body to follow the movement of hers.

“I’m starving, Sansa,” he says, looking at her mouth, and _Oh God, I can’t handle this, I can’t even breathe, how am I supposed to go back to normal_ because he is so close, so tantalizingly close to her that she cannot help but reach up and brush away that smudge of dirt on his cheek, first with her fingertips and then the entire side of her thumb.

“You’ve got some um,” she whispers, unable to finish because of how he looks at her. She wonders if he ever goes hunting and if he’s any good at it, because she feels hunted now, deliciously hunted, thinks if she were an animal in his sights she would just lie down in the grass and beg to be slayed. Her fingers return to his cheekbone, drifting down towards the line of beard, close to his mouth, but then she glances to the counter and sees Genna sitting and watching them with interest. Sansa clears her throat and drops her hand immediately, ducking her head as she turns away from him to turn on the oven for her chicken nuggets.

Once he’s cleaned up, Genna tells Sandor all about the fun she had with Renly and Loras as they eat at the table, Sansa and Sandor having fried chicken tenders in a grown up translation of Genna’s dinosaur nuggets, and Sansa smiles when he pauses as she gets to the staying up and the candy. He raises his eyebrows to her as if to say _Those assholes_ but then she feels his leg extend and the slow, careful way he plants his boot beside her bare foot, and her chest rises and falls with the spike of adrenaline that single touch causes. It is two acts being played out in unison, the innocuous conversation about everyone’s day – she doesn’t say much, because what is there to say about hangovers and mooning over a man – and the dance below the tabletop, Sansa’s foot resting on top of his boot, the suede soft on her heel when her toes slide under the cuff of his jeans, and suddenly it is a dangerous game because of how he doesn’t speak much anymore, because of how dark and lethal the look is that he gives her. She draws her foot away from him, hating herself for doing it but she _can’t_ , she just can’t, because it’s killing her.

It’s hard to eat when she’s thinking about taking his clothes off, and so she pushes her food around the plate as she _mmhmms_ and nods to whatever it is they’re talking about, Genna and Sandor discussing going horseback riding this weekend, she thinks, but then dinner is over, and when she stands to take her plate to the sink he stands as well, taking her plate from her, his fingers pinning hers to the underside of it a moment before letting her slip free, and her hands shake when she helps Genna get dressed for bed.

“Did you dance last night, daddy?” Genna asks after her story, and he huffs a laugh with a shake of his head.

“No, I didn’t, I just watched everyone else dance,” he says, and though his back is turned to her she knows what he really means, because it was _she_ whom he watched and no one else. She’s leaning against the door frame but she wonders if she might faint.

“Did you dance, Sansa?” Genna peers around her uncle’s broad body to look at her.

“Yes, I did, honey,” she smiles. “I danced the night away, just like Cinderella,” she says, wishing she’d had a certain someone to dance with, and her eyes roam from his shoulders to his lower back, how the bands of muscle flanking his spine are visible through his shirt, even in this low light.

“Did you dance with a boy?” Genna’s eyes are full of princes and princesses, mermaids and magic, and they shine with the idea that Sansa met her prince. _If only you knew, sweetheart._ But the mention of boys does not seem to give Sandor the same pie-in-the-sky ideas.

“She _almost_ did because he wanted her to, but then he went away, though she should have been firmer with him,” Sandor says, and she frowns, wondering how this is the time for a lecture on female empowerment.

“I was being polite, Genna, which is also important,” and the arousal and sexual frustration mingles with new irritation and impatience, because this is not the time or the place for this conversation. “Bedtime for you, kiddo, you have school in the morning,” she says, and she gives Sandor a bewildered, annoyed kind of look when he stands and turns after kissing her goodnight.

“What was that about?” she hisses once he’s closed the door, and she follows him as he walks towards the main room.

“What? It’s true, you should have been firmer with him, told him to fuck off instead of waiting for me,” he says over his shoulder.

“I _wasn’t_ waiting for you, I was dancing and he just came up to me. I was _telling_ him—”

“—that your ‘boyfriend’ was coming, I remember,” he says, turning finally as he leans against the counter. She is beyond confused, after the past hour of heated looks and furtive, stolen touches beneath tables and plates, how all that pent up tension has manifested into this.

“What’s your problem, Sandor? How is this what we’re talking about right now? What, are you jealous?” and he snorts as he shrugs irritably, rolling his eyes skyward as if trying to find the words up there on the ceiling.

“I don’t know, you’re just too trusting sometimes, that’s all,” he says. “You know, you and the guy in the bar, that guy you dated up in Washington, and then that fucking teacher, Pet—”

“How _dare_ you,” she says, stepping forward, hand raised to slap him, but he unfolds one arm from across his chest, catching her by the wrist almost lazily, and her fingers curl into her palm from his tight grip. He tugs her forward. “Let me go,” she snaps, but Sandor shakes his head.

“Do you want to hit me, Sansa? If you really want to, I’ll let you, but I want to hear you say it,” he growls, voice low and dangerous, deep as the black bottom of the ocean. She thinks she _might_ want to hit him, knows she wants to kiss him, to wrap her legs around him, but she’s still angry.

“No, but I want you to say you’re sorry,” she says hotly, and he tugs her closer. She is standing between his splayed feet now, hips pressed to his, and with shallow, rapid breaths she realizes she can feel how hard he is, through his jeans and her dress, and she is panting from anger, from the press of his erection, from the swift way this tide has changed again. He’s staring at her mouth again, and she whimpers when he tugs her wrist again, when her breasts press against his chest.

“What’s the magic word?” It’s a snarl and it could be taken as mean, but she knows him better now.

“Sandor,” she whispers, shivering when he shakes his head because it’s not the word he wants. “ _Please,_ ” she says, and then his arm slides between her dress and sweater, and she shudders from the weight and warmth of his hand when it presses against her lower back. He drags her forward, frees her wrist to cup her face instead, and then it’s like searing, hot light when his hand goes to the back of her neck, fisting into her hair like he did when he was sleeping, and then his lips are on hers, and she cries out a moan into his mouth.

Sansa lifts her hands to his face until his head tips so he can kiss her deeper, his tongue a push and a slide, push and slide in her mouth, and then she winds them up around his neck to make sure he can’t go anywhere. His grip tightens in her hair while his other hand lowers to squeeze her ass, and she mewls, writhes, rolls her hips forward, and it’s exquisite, it’s the color of fire beneath her closed lids, and it’s hungry and relentless how he steals her breath, how he tastes and how he feels, the rub of his beard and the weight of his hair that drapes over her hands. Before she knows what she’s doing she pulls out the ponytail holder, and he grunts, two hands on her ass now as he grabs her, kneads her flesh roughly and stands up from his lean on the counter, and she gasps when he hauls her up into his arms.

“Oh my God,” she pants when he turns and walks towards the table and sets her down on the edge of it, head sagging back as he bends over her to kiss her throat, pushing her sweater from both shoulders to kiss her collarbone. He leans over her, forcing her back until she’s on her elbows, but she collapses onto her back when he grabs her thighs and yanks her hips closer to his, drives his hard cock against the juncture of her thighs and now each exhale is a moan escaping her.

“Do you remember,” he says to her stomach as he kisses her through her dress, and she spears her fingers into the thickness of his hair, holding him in place, and now his hands are under her dress, sliding up the sides of her thighs. “Do you remember what I told you last night?”

“Yes,” she breathes, whines, cries, “yes I do, I remember, I remember,” she arches her back when his mouth finds her breast, his breath numbingly hot even through the fabric.

“I told you,” he says, pausing to rub his bearded chin against her nipple, making her groan, “tell me what I told you, Sansa,” he says, and his fingers curl around the elastic of her panties on her hips.

“That you would kiss me,” she says, sliding her feet up his legs, bracing them against his thighs, “you would kiss me over and over,” she says, and then he is blessedly back to her mouth, and he is tongue and teeth and lip when he steals kiss after kiss from her, when he nips her lower lip, when he leaves her mouth to pull her earlobe between his teeth.

“Lower and lower,” he whispers in her ear, making her cry out _Sandor, please,_ and he says “ _Yes,_ Sansa,”in response, and he’s got her panties off, halfway down her thighs, and she doesn’t _care,_ she wants it so unbelievably bad, wants to suffer from whatever he has in mind, what she _knows_ he has in mind, and Sandor is sinking to his knees when they both freeze at the sudden wail coming from the hallway.

His hands are still a curl around the lace of her panties when he looks up at her, a savage heat in his expression though they know it has to stop.

“Genna,” they say in unison, and he stands swiftly, pushing her underwear back up her legs, and she lifts her hips obediently when he slides them back in place. Sandor pulls her up to sitting position, and she feels ravaged though they’ve hardly done anything, but he kisses her breath away again, a hard, rough kiss full of dark promises, wicked things that make her wet, make her ache. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, hands in her hair, but she shakes her head, pushes him away when the crying intensifies. It is the first time she’s had one of her nightmares since Sansa has arrived, and as monumentally frustrated as she is, she’ll be damned if she gets in the way of the comfort Genna needs.

“Christ, you’re perfect,” he murmurs as he walks backwards to the hall, sweeping his hair over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare move,” and when he disappears into the hall she slumps back onto the table, propping her feet on the seat of the chair, the place where he sat only forty minutes earlier, and she squeezes her thighs together, the place where only seconds earlier he was about to devastate her in the most beautiful way.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [HOLY PICSET BATMAN](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103420731652/kiss-the-girl-chapter-11-picset-thanks-jillypups)

Sandor wakes with a start and a sharp inhale, but he masters himself when Genna stirs beside him. She had been inconsolable, crying for her mother, crying about water snake monsters and sea witches, and finally the only way to calm her was to break down and let her sleep with him in his bed. He’d tucked her in before leaving under the pretense of getting her a cup of water, then sprinted down the hall and to the main room where Sansa still sat on the table. He can see her now even with the imminent sunrise lightening his dark room, her hair wild, eyes burning, the outstretch of her arms when he walked into them. But it was painfully short lived, a series of kisses so desperate, so urgent, it was hard to remember why he was there in the first place.

Genna uses his arm as a pillow but it’s easy enough to slide out from beneath her, and he kisses the crown of her head for good measure, for comfort and because he wants to. She doesn’t stir, not even when he sits up, gazing down at her, and his hand looks overlarge and clumsy when he brushes her hair away from her face. Sandor shakes his head at how tightly she clutches his shirt to her narrow little chest, how it’s black and faded, like him in some regards, and how stern it looks against her mint green nightgown with the rainbow umbrellas on it. He sighs, and then he’s easing off the mattress, arching his back in a stretch before setting off to seek his prize.

He pads down to her door, thinks about just letting himself in because it is so _early,_ and he knows a knock will wake her, fears a knock will wake Genna, but what has happened – _happened is too tame a word for it,_ he thinks – what has _exploded_ between them is too new and too precious, too goddamned rare in his world. He cannot help himself, and so with a single bent knuckle he raps twice, light as leaves falling, on her door, and his heart thuds in his chest, his pulse quickens like a rabbit’s when he hears the sleepy mumble of her voice telling him to come in. Her room is gray light and bedding the color of a ripe peach, a lavender rose on the cusp of full bloom and the auburn of her hair, cast across her pillow like dye across a river.

“Why is it,” she murmurs, stretching in bed and rolling towards him as he closes the door behind him, and it’s a beautiful sort of misery, seeing her so undone and rumpled in an unmade bed, “that whenever I _can’t_ touch you, you walk around bare chested, but whenever I can, you’ve got a shirt on?” There is already a crackle of heat between them, even this early, even half asleep with a room of untied running shoes on the floor, a spread of books and magazines on her nightstand.

“Are you telling me to take my clothes off, little bird?” he grins, and she nods with a dreamy sort of smile her own. Sandor reaches back behind his shoulders and tugs the shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor before coming to stand by her bed, and he sighs when she scoots to the center of the bed and kicks the covers down to make room for him, when he sees she’s in little shorts and a see through men’s undershirt. He puts his knee to the mattress and a hand beside her pillow, swinging his other leg up and over her, planting the other knee between her legs, and it’s a slow, descending push-up that brings his body down to hers, the first long legged press together they’ve ever had, and when she hums it makes his eyes close. Sansa pushes a hand up the length of his spine and down again, a warm, sleepy sweep of fingers, the faintest suggestion of nails, and he kisses her throat once he props himself up on his elbows, brushes her hair away from her neck with a hand as she tilts her head to the side to give him access.

“You owe me an apology,” she sighs, both hands on his back now, and if she’s mad at him she’s got a funny way of showing it with her leg sliding up the side of his, and though he is the larger, the stronger and the meaner of the two, he feels ensnared by her, her leg bending to wrap around his, her long arms around his torso, pinning him down to her, and Sandor thinks perhaps he’s never been so willing to be imprisoned.

“What for,” he says to her skin, to the pale, pale spray of freckles across her shoulder.

“Last night,” she murmurs, making him groan when she takes a hand to push his hair away, to kiss his shoulder in an echo of how he’s kissing her now, and the memory of her on the table, legs around him, lace panties in his hands is overwhelming. He slides a hand down her side and up again beneath the thin shirt she wears, fingertips brushing the under-swell of her breast, and though she’s as even and mellow as ever, seemingly more in control of this moment than he is, the contact makes her gasp, makes her arch up in ways he’s dreamed of for weeks, and he finds that he’s proud of how high he can hitch her breath.

“I told you then that I was sorry to leave you,” he says, trying to kiss her, but she moves her head, keeping her mouth teasingly just out of reach.

“Not that,” she says, and then Sansa hisses when he moves his hand higher, has her full breast in the cup of his hand, and she sends five fingernails coasting down his back, making his muscles tense, his hips press forward when he lifts his head to look at her. “What you said, before you, before we, before _this_ happened,” she says. “You can’t kiss me until you say you’re sorry for bringing him up,” and _then_ Sandor remembers.

“Sansa,” he says, removing his hand from beneath her shirt to brush her hair from her temple, and he lets go of a breath when she gazes up at him, perfect creature as she is, and though they are achingly entangled right now he _is_ sorry to see her expression. “I didn’t- I wasn’t- I shouldn’t have mentioned him. I just- you’re too good for them. For anyone. It isn’t right how they treated you, and I can’t stand to think of it.” Sansa arches a brow at him, and he stares at her in confusion before he gets it. “Oh, right,” he says, clearing his throat. “I am sorry, Sansa,” he says, and then she smiles richly, and yes, this is a prison, a sweet, soft capture of her arms and her legs that he cannot escape, not now when she pulls him down for a kiss, her tongue a coy, fleeting dart against his.

It’s a slower, gentler coming together than last night, when everything boiled over and he thought his chest would burst if he had to deny himself, deny _her_ any longer. There is less urgency but no less passion when she moans into his mouth, and she is slow-moving, molasses in January as she arches and shifts beneath him, makes him think of early morning mist drifting across the grass if he bothers to think at all. He takes his time with her undershirt, his hesitancy a question that is answered when she lifts her shoulder blades off the bed, and he tosses the shirt to puddle on the floor beside his own.

She whimpers _Oh_ when he rounds his spine to drop kisses to her breasts, taking one nipple in his mouth as he palms the other, and her nails are two rakes through his hair as his tongue works her into a gasping, high pitched fervor which in turn only encourages him, and now there is only one thought on his mind and it is the taste of her, the bone shattering urge to make her buck her hips against his mouth, to make her cry out and maybe say his name in the process.

“Oh my God,” she says when he presses his hand between her legs, his fingers in prime position to make her scream if it weren’t for these damned short of hers, and he moves to slide his hand between the waistband of her shorts and her skin. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she gasps, and suddenly he feels like a bastard with a one track mind, recalling last night’s aggression that was fueled by his unslaked thirst, how he had felt so driven to consume her, to make her _his_.

“I’m sorry,” he says, resting his forehead on her collarbone as he listens to her breathing slow, though there is a little thrill to note how shallow and rapid it is.

“No, don’t be, I just, oh my God,” she sighs, carding her fingers through his hair, and he is pleased in a dark, primal way when she says “you’re driving me crazy, Sandor, I can’t even think.”

“What do you want to think about,” he murmurs against her throat before he kisses her, and if it’s possible he gets even harder when she tugs his hair to get him to lift his head so that she can kiss his mouth.

“You,” she says against his mouth. “This, how good it feels right now. I just want to feel this,” she says, and so he feels it with her, the slow slide of tongues and the heat on their skin, how incredible it is to feel the weight of her when he rolls onto his back and takes her with him, how she kisses his chest and runs her hands down his stomach. It feels like a Sunday afternoon, like a long walk under the sun or the one time he went to Mexico and watched the sun set into the ocean. She sits up to gaze at him, let him gaze at her, and he is able to run his hands from her shoulders to her hips, though when she leans down to touch his scars he closes his eyes because it is just like a dream he had not so long ago. When her alarm goes off telling them she has to get Genna ready for school, he is all the hungrier for having had such a long, lingering taste of her, and for the rest of the day all he can think of is her, of how she said _You_ and how that word has curled like a cat around his heart. _You._

 

“You’re _kidding_ me,” Margie grins, arms folded across her chest as she leans towards Sansa. They’re at one of the malls in Tucson for a change of scenery and to window shop, to get Genna out of the house and so Sansa can tell her everything. _Well, almost everything,_ she thinks, because she can still feel the table against her back and the way he pulled her panties down her thighs and she shivers in the cold air conditioning. Their stolen moments that morning have stayed with her too, how he kissed her like no one ever has before, how being in his hands and his possession felt so unbelievably wonderful. He’d left his shirt on her floor and she thinks she’ll end up sleeping with it like Genna does.

“No, I’m not, thank God,” Sansa grins, glancing into the swarm of children running around the play area where Genna is spinning around like whirling dervish. “It- I mean, I can’t even describe it. But I guess you were right,” she says, and she laughs to see Margaery’s imperious look of smug satisfaction.

“I’m telling you, I’ve never seen him so worked up over a woman before. I bet Genna’s over the moon, too. She adores you,” Margie says, rattling her iced tea, and it makes Sansa smile to hear it even though there is a tug on her conscience.

“We um, we haven’t told her or anything,” she says, biting a fingernail. “I mean, my God, it just happened last night,” she says. It felt like lying to act as though nothing was new between Sandor and her, though Genna noticed that he was still home when she woke up, and they danced around each other with exaggerated care, with such forced nonchalance she very nearly laughed. “I don’t want to make it weird for her, you know?”

Margie sighs, popping open the lid of her iced tea to gauge the contents. “It’s hard with kids, especially when Genna’s been through so much. But at the same time it’s nice, for kids to see a little love around the house,” she says with a smile. Sansa wonders if she fully understands what kind of love they’ve been leaving around the house, and there’s that shiver again. _Tell me what I told you, Sansa,_ and she crosses her legs with a clearing of her throat.

“And then there’s still the boss thing,” Sansa says. “I don’t think that’s a great message to send to a four year old girl,” Sansa says. As if on cue, Genna comes bounding up to take a sip from her lemonade, and Sansa tucks her hair behind her ears as she sucks down three big mouthfuls, smiling when Genna gives her a breathless _Thank you Sansa_ before dashing to go play with her new band of brothers and sisters.

“Well,” Margie says brightly as she stabs her straw into her ice, “I’m sure you guys’ll figure it out. Love always finds a way.”

“I thought it was ‘Life always finds a way,’” Sansa says with a smile, and Margie gives her one of her singular curling foxy smiles.

“Same difference, honey.”

The way they seem to figure it out is stolen moments behind the back of a clever, observant little girl. He finds her in the hallway ad pushes her up against the wall when Genna is in her bath, she grabs him by the collar of his plaid shirt and tugs him in for a kiss before she runs outside to chase Genna, and most mornings he creeps into her room and kisses her until she is breathless, and it is getting harder and harder to control herself. One morning a week earlier, she very nearly ripped his pajama pants off before Genna called out from her bed that she wanted a hamburger for breakfast.

If his niece notices the difference in the air around the house she makes no note of it, though she seems to enjoy how much more familiar they are with each other, how they sit closer together on the sofa when they watch television with her, how snug it is for her in the narrowing space between their hips where she curls up with Sandor’s shirt. She encourages Sandor to tickle-fight with Sansa once she’s rendered too breathless from her uncle’s attentions, and though he has yet to take her up on that offer, the burning looks Sansa gets when the suggestion is made sparks a fire in her heart and her belly. They are able to maintain the façade but it’s a crumbling thing; the foundation is cracked, the joints are fissured, and it feels like it is mere seconds from destruction.

Like now, how she cannot help herself when he comes home, how she cannot keep her mouth shut. “Hey, come here and taste this,” she says, grinning from his forge-hot gray eyes on her, from how unbelievably _sexy_ he is, covered in dirt with his hair disheveled and his sunglasses hanging from his collar. She has wanted to make spaghetti sauce since watching The Godfather and has spent all afternoon on it, and now she wants him to taste it and she wants him to be wowed by it.

“Careful how you phrase things, little bird,” he says, bracing his hands on the edge of the kitchen island where the stovetop is, and he’s dirt under the nails, smells of the sun, is all innuendo with the way he lets his eyes drop to her breasts, and that’s _another_ way she cannot help herself, because she left the bra off when she chose this dress, the one with the three little buttons down the front and the thin straps that never seem to stay in place.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” she whispers though hers is right there with him, and she fantasizes about him pushing the dress off her shoulders, hauling her up onto the counter and kissing her, lower and lower like he promised her. She masters herself with a sip of wine, though maybe it’s all the more dangerous because of it, and with her hand cupped under the wooden spoon she holds it out for him. Her mouth opens when his does and she can feel the tension down the handle of the spoon when he closes his mouth, and he nods appreciatively as he straightens out of his lean over the counter, wiping his lower lip with a thumb.

“Music play, do what the music say, you wanna kiss the girl!” Genna screams at the top of her lungs as she comes running around the corner from the hall, and Sandor chokes on his mouthful of sauce, making Sansa laugh before she can help herself.

“Believe me, I want to,” he murmurs, and after glancing back to see where his niece is, Sandor reaches over the island, brushing his thumb across her cheek so gently, so whisper-soft and tender that it makes her shiver as much as do his dark deeds from that night when they came together for the first time, as violently and beautifully as a thunderclap.

 

“If you don’t ease up with the burning looks, Romeo, I think her clothes are literally going to catch fire,” Bronn whispers as he sits beside Sandor inside Hops and Vines with a glass of wine, and Sandor can’t help but huff a laugh. It has been a couple of weeks since he first kissed Sansa and whatever had been building up between them before that night has just magnified, has only proved to intensify even though they now have an outlet.  She stands with Margie and Genna at the bar, laughing with Ros as she pours them sparkling wine, and to him she is _mesmerizing_ , and so yeah, it’s hard for him to take his eyes from her, and while he prides himself on being able to keep his expression a mask it is getting more and more difficult to keep the way he feels for _her_ to himself.

“Hey boys, we’re going out to play cornhole,” Margie says, and she’s already got a beanbag in her hand that she’s tossing in the air and catching. “Care to join us?”

“Hell yeah,” Bronn says, but Sandor is too busy watching Sansa to bother answering, and she grins as she tries to ignore him, but the toss of her hair and the way her hips move as they lead the way outside tells him she is well aware of him.

“Hey, Sansa,” Willas smiles from the table nearest the cornhole boards where he sits with Jaime and Brienne, and Sandor narrows his eyes until he sees Jaime grinning with his eyebrows raised.

“Oh, hey, guys,” she says, smiling kindly to the eldest Tyrell, and there is still that ever-present smirk on Lannister’s face as he watches them play. Margie demands a battle of the sexes and so he is forced to stand under the scrutiny of the others as they play, and he tries and fails to distract himself with Genna and her antics, but then that too is ruined when Brienne offers to take her to the rope and plank swing beneath the vine-choked arbor down the hill from the patio. She is swinging hair and the swirl of a sundress that catches and moves with the breeze, long-throated laughter at Bronn’s stupid jokes, and sweet smiles to the flattery Willas keeps tossing her way.

“Degree in education, that’s admirable,” Willas says with his easy GQ smile and his denim jacket, his injured leg propped up on the chair across from him. “I doubled in land management and horticulture, which was fine, but mostly at the insistence of my dad,” and Sansa listens intently as they talk, looking away from him only when it’s her turn to throw. She asks about the horse who felled him and he says he still owns him, can still ride though it is impossible for him to play soccer anymore, much to his admitted regret, and that makes Sansa tut and say _Aww, that’s horrible, Willas,_ and Sandor hates how sweet his name sounds falling from her lips.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Sandor mutters, turning to walk away a pace or two when Bronn’s beanbag slides off the board and sails towards Willas, who catches the thing before it falls at his feet, a graceful dip in his chair that only serves to underline the tragedy of his being stuck with a lifelong injury. He heft it with a laugh and hands it to Sansa, and when Sandor glances back it’s impossible to miss the lingering way Willas’s fingers brush against Sansa’s.

“Ease up there, cowboy,” Jaime says to him at the bar when Sandor refills his red, “I’m sure she’s just being polite,” he says, gazing at the dirt under the nails of his left hand. “Although he is a pretty decent looking guy, isn’t he? Maybe she _does_ like him,” and Sandor rolls his eyes to hear one handsome man compliment another.

“Who likes who?” Ros asks with an artful pour of wine into his and then Jaime’s glasses.

“Well, I think Willas has a thing for Sansa, and if I’m not mistaken Sandor has a thing for Sansa, and if I’m not mistaken _again,_ I think Sansa has a thing for Sandor,” Jaime grins, and Sandor swears under his breath at the delighted look on Ros’s face.

“Shut up, Jaime,” Sandor sighs.

“But that’s so _exciting_ ,” she breathes, winking at Sandor when he slides a five dollar bill towards her. “You know, she might be interested in seeing the wine room,” she says offhandedly as she replaces the bottle on the shelf below the bar, and suddenly Ros’s nosy ways might not be such a bad thing after all. He frowns at her, but she simply arches a fine brow and shrugs with a light, seemingly innocent smile. “Maybe you could show her?”

“I’ll go,” Jaime offers.

“Like hell you will,” Sandor growls, and Ros and Jaime laugh as he walks back outside.

“Hey,” he says to Sansa, and she immediately abandons her conversation with Willas to turn towards him, much to his dark pleasure, and it _is_ dark pleasure, what he has on his mind. “Margie, keep an eye on Genna down there, all right?”

“Why, where are you two off to?” Margie asks, hands on her hips. “We’re trying to play a game here, Sandor, we are trying to show you that girls rule and boys drool, okay?” But there is a twinkle in her eye, and he supposes Sansa has confided in her as much as he has confided in Bronn.

“Get Jaime and Brienne to join in,” he says, watching Jaime come outside to stand behind Margie, and he slings his right arm over her shoulders, drinking his wine. 

"I maybe have only the one hand but I'm getting better at this stupid game, so watch out, missy," he says and Margie laughs a _Yeah right_ before stealing his glass to drink from it.

“Come on Sansa, I want to show you something,” Sandor says. _I want to do something,_ he thinks, and while he wants to take her by the hand, lace his fingers to hers to show Willas Tyrell just what he can do with his fucking college degrees and his million dollar smile, he doesn’t. Not here in front of everyone, where Genna could see and then ask questions he’s as of yet unsure how to answer.

“Where are we going?” she asks with a smile, taking a swallow of bubbly, fizzy wine, dragging her hair over her shoulder, making him hard just thinking about taking a handful of it to hold her in place as he kisses her.

“Wine room,” he says, though she hardly knows what that entails with such a curt description, but he is a man on a mission, his mind too busy now to be more articulate. Ros swings open the little Dutch door to let them behind the bar, and now he risks exposure by taking Sansa’s hand. “Back here,” he says, voice rough with intent now, and he pulls her in front of him when he pushes open the door separating the front bar area from the warren of storerooms and offices. He guides her all the way to the back and through another closed door which he closes behind them, where a fine-polished wood floor gleams in the low lamplight. It’s largely empty save for the wall of bottles that are lined up, floor to ceiling, a large rough-hewn wooden table where the bottling happens, and another bar, high and sleek, that stretches  wall to wall on the other side of the room, and it’s to there he points. She rests her hands on the bar, glances around, and he can see her shrug.

“Sandor, what are you, oh my _God,_ ” she says when he spins her around with a hand to her shoulder, pinning her ass against the bar with his hips as he kisses her, and there is a delicious hum in her throat as he sucks the wine from her tongue. Her hands fly to his shoulders and then meet at the nape of his neck, and she gasps when he lifts her by the backs of her thighs onto the bar, widens the distance between her knees when he steps between them. Sandor’s hands find her skin beneath the skirt of her dress, palms a hot sweep up her thighs and once more he has the feel of her panties under his fingers, once more he fights the urge to simply rip them to pieces with a single jerk of his hands. Sansa tries to say his name again but he swallows it with a kiss, because there is time, now, time enough to get her moaning his name, time enough to make her forget Willas Tyrell, to forget that there are any other people on this earth other than the two of them, because _Lower and lower,_ he told her once, and he is a man of his word.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [PICSET by Bexmorealli](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103522204367/kiss-the-girl-chapter-12-jillypups)

Once Sandor lifts her up and onto the bar, Sansa slings her stemless glass of wine down the polished length of it, and when it careens off the edge and shatters there is a sharp prick of fear inside her, a fear that they will be discovered and a fear that she has done something wrong, but then Sandor laughs, a low, deep, dangerous thing, and suddenly she doesn’t care anymore.

“These are mine now,” he says, and she closes her eyes, lets her head thump back against the wall behind her when she feels his fingertips dig into her hips, snaring the lace and dragging them down and away, and suddenly there is nothing, _nothing_ between them. There is a heady moment when he takes her face in one hand, his thumb at her lower lip, and then he pulls her chin down so she is looking at him and he snarls, _actually snarls_ with a curl and downturn of his mouth when she drops her head and lets his thumb slide inside her mouth. There is perhaps a second between this first taste of him on her tongue and the subsequent slide of a finger of his other hand inside her, but it is enough to erase everything she’s known about this world and rewrite it in stopped hearts and saliva, in the way he says her name like he’s grating it against stone.

“Oh God,” she moans as he withdraws his finger only to add another and she’s clutching the edge of the bar on which she sits, her back arching to push her hips closer to his touch, shoulders against the wall so she is like a strung bow aiming in for his touch. “No please, don’t stop,” she whispers as he pulls his hand from her to wrench aside the unbuttoned flannel shirt she’s wearing over her sundress, and then all fantasies she’s had lately come to fruition when he drags the straps of her dress down, when he pulls her breasts free and buries his face in the warmth between them.

“Oh, no,” he says, sinking to his knees after kissing her there, after sucking both of her nipples so intensely it makes her cry out twice, makes her fist his hair so hard in both hands that he grunts in pain, yanking her still closer to him with a needful shove of both hands at the small of her back. “I will not stop until I hear my name.” There is a split second that if asked, she could only describe as being suspended by a string over the most wicked and terrifying thing, the most delectable and tantalizing agony, but then he buries his face between her thighs and she’s got the feel of his tongue inside her, and Sansa’s legs immediately start to shake until he slings them over his shoulders, and now that she has somewhere to dig in her heels, she unflexes her thighs and has the pleasure of his moaning into the wetness he’s made for them both.

 _This,_ she thinks, with the scattered mental process of a dazed creature, _this is heaven, this is heaven because it can’t exist on earth,_ and her hands are in his hair as he laps into her again and again, with the flick of his tongue at the highest part of her pinpricking pleasure, and the penetration of it just below that tender, spiced spot. While one feels like cinnamon and the other like champagne they both make her jerk and start, they both stun her senseless until finally he focuses on cinnamon, on the flick and the dart, on the lick and the throb, on how it forces from her mouth his name, louder and louder despite the very real fear they could be discovered. Sansa comes into his mouth and against those strange and wondrous fingers of his that have snuck back inside her to wreak havoc on her self control, orgasms with abandon and some strange noise in her throat, something between a sob and a laugh. Sandor still keeps diving his tongue and his fingers inside her as if he cannot help himself, his free hand gripping her ass and holding her, _pulling_ her so roughly against him she wonders if he can breathe. But he is a moaning menace, a tongue-thrusting and hungry devil that she has to slap with a hand to his neck to get him up and out of her, because if he delves inside her with his tongue just once more, the oversensitive aftershock of her climax will split her in two.

“Sansa,” he murmurs, kissing her thighs, making her shake, making her whine, and then he is standing between her legs, kissing her, returning the salt of orgasm she so freely gave him, and it’s a wonder to her. Harry was with so many women and yet did so little for her; the three times he went down on her left her embarrassed and bored, left her unfulfilled and confused, but Sandor has done now in mere minutes, mere _moments_ what her philandering ex-boyfriend couldn’t do in a lifetime. “You taste as good as I thought,” he says between kisses, and she realizes when he runs his hand through her hair that her panties are hanging like a pale blue, lacy flag from his forearm.

It makes her wet all over again.

“Sandor,” she says, wrapping her legs around him, and now that she’s had a taste – _He’s had a taste of me –_ of what real men can do, there is nothing she’d rather do than return the favor. Sansa kisses him with a forward lick of her tongue, drawing him and the taste of his victory into her mouth.

“ Yes,” he sighs against her jaw before kissing it, and she’s jerking again, gasping and lifting her hips in such a way that convinces him to slip that devastating forefinger of his inside her again. _No¸_ she thinks, _no, I want_ you _now,_ but he is too quick and too ruinous, and then there’s—

“Oh,”she says, with plenty of _No, no, no, oh, yesyesyesyes, Sandor please yes,_ and he is teeth on her shoulder, she is pressed against the wall as he kisses her and fucks her with his fingers, thumb to that still-swollen bead of nerves, and _he is going to touch me like this until I fall apart. I will fall apart._ He makes a fist in her hair and squeezes, making her cry out, and he watches her, she knows he watches her, confirms it whenever her eyes open, that as good as this feels for her he is gaining something from it as well. There is a fleeting thought of how easily Harry would give up on her after five minutes of lazy up-and-down before she’s coming again from Sandor’s sweet, sacred attack, from  the scruff of his beard, that unbearable rub on her throat as he kisses her, as she tips her head to the side and pants out “Sandor, Sandor, Sandor,” as he curls his fingers and rubs her in time to the sound of his own name.

“Are you coming again for me, little bird? Will I get another one out of you?” He still has that hand in her hair, still holds her in place, his two hands working her, tearing her to pieces bit by bit, and she is beyond certain that she has never come twice in her life like this, has never had the opportunity to see how far she could be pushed, coaxed and devoured, and that realization coupled with his question makes her squeeze his fingers in reply, and now he’s got the whimper in his throat when he kisses her.

Despite the pulse and throb she’s still experiencing, there is an emptiness she feels when he slowly takes his hand from between her thighs, he has been so ardent and so focused on her, and she sighs, pulls him to her with her arms around his neck. Sandor kisses her roughly, is like rigid stone himself compared to the limp-limbed looseness she feels after two orgasms, and it’s no wonder, not when she squeezes her legs around him and feels with her naked skin, still wet from him, how _hard_ he is through his jeans. He is breathing hard, has funneled his sexual frustration into the way he wrung so much pleasure out of her, but now that it’s over he is clearly tormented, and there is nothing she’d rather do than return the favor. When she slowly, slowly slides off of the bar to stand in front of him he runs his hands across her breasts and she lets him, closes her eyes briefly when his thumbs run circles over her nipples until they're hard, but when she curls her finger behind the loose tongue of his belt and pulls it from the loop on his jeans he freezes, and Sansa opens her eyes to grin up at him.

 

Sandor’s mind reels when she unbuckles his belt, and because he thinks she means to fuck him he tries to walk her back to the bar but she stills him with a shake of her head, and that is when all thoughts fly out of his head because there are basically two reasons for her to take his pants off, and she’s just ruled out one of them. He is rendered useless as a blank canvas and the only one who can fill him with color and substance and texture is Sansa. She is fingers at the button of his jeans, is lower lip caught between her teeth and the coyest, most teasing little smile when she looks up at him as she pulls his zipper down.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, making her laugh, and it’s deep and husky in her throat, and she holds his jeans up at his hips with two fists as she gets up on her toes to kiss him.

“I’m not going to stop until I hear you say my name, Sandor,” she says before he has the flick of her tongue against his to torment him. “I’m not going to stop until you say ‘little bird,’” and he thinks he could probably say it now and come like a rocket if she keeps kissing him like this, if she keeps looking at him that way. 

“Yes ma’am,” he murmurs, and then she kisses her way down his chest, letting his jeans sag halfway down his ass as she slides her hands up under his shirt, and there is an appreciative little meow out of her, a high little curling mewl when she runs her nails down his stomach to the band of his boxers, and he hisses when her fingers curl in and drag them down. Sansa sinks to her knees and he can feel the press of her breasts, still half exposed from the way he pawed at her dress, against his thighs, but when she wraps her hands around his cock, Sandor forgets everything, even himself, and he lets loose a groan.

Sandor’s head sags back at the first lick, and his hands drop to her hair when she guides him inside her mouth, and he stares up at the ceiling as she pulls every sensation throughout his body down into one point of intoxicating pleasure before realizing there is a far more tantalizing view than wooden beams and whitewash. On her knees with that tousle of a red mane, Sansa has him by the hip with one hand, by the base of his cock with the other, and she has her _eyes_ on him, and he is already a hairs’ breadth away from coming. She is too perfect, too beautiful, and yet she is on her knees for him, is pleasing him for the sake of it, and he restrains himself from pumping his hips, from ruining the sweet soft pace she’s setting, from interfering with the slow suck and the horrible, wonderful ebb before she pulls him inside her mouth again.

“Fuck,” he says when her hand squeezes him. He has never received head while sober, has never been gazed at while getting it, and the open way she watches him, the hot way her eyes burn as his limbs start shaking from the agony of holding himself at bay is almost as blissful as the feel of her hot little mouth. “Sansa, please,” he says, because he doesn’t want to come if she isn’t ready for him, but she hums and shakes her head, and the hum makes him groan so she does it again, and he can see a _smile_ around him, and it’s that, that curve on the corner of her mouth that does him in.

“Oh God, little bird, Sansa, oh fuck,” he grits out as he loses all control, and he stares in a tingling daze as her throat works and he realizes she’s swallowing him down. All the rejection and isolation he’s experienced in his life, and there is this perfect woman accepting even this basest form of him. Sandor has to focus on staying on his feet as he comes, but the stars behind his eyes blind him, the way she pulls on him and moves her tongue against his cock is so overwhelming he very nearly staggers back. He is all ragged breath and mind numbing pleasure, isn’t quite sure he can feel his feet or his hands, but then she is rising up onto her feet, is helping him back into his jeans, and when he slides his hands down her arms he can feel that it’s her, and she helps bring him back from wherever she flung him.

“Where did you learn- you know what, no, I don’t even care,” he says, and she laughs, kissing his chest though his shirt as he pulls her black sundress back in place, slides the flannel shirt back over her shoulders, as they put each other back together again, as if there is more than just shattered glass here, but pieces of her and pieces of him. He wonders if he’ll be patched up with parts of her, wonders if she’ll take some of him home with her.

“Let’s just say that I was inspired,” she murmurs when he winds his arms around her, lifting her up in his arms to kiss her fully, and there’s the taste of them together there and Sandor wonders if it’s what love tastes like. “I’ve never been so inspired, actually,” she says and if he gets her meaning he supposes he has a decent reason to be proud of himself.

“I guess we need to get back,” he says, though he’s never wanted to stay put so badly in all his life. But he has no idea how much time has passed, has no idea the kind of embarrassing welcome party there will be when they emerge, and he wonders for a wild minute if they should go out separately. He realizes with a jolt that her panties are still on his arm, and he draws away from her to pull them down, the soft silk and lace of them, the pale blue frothy little concoction. He wonders if he’s seen anything so delicate. “I think these belong to you,” he says, but she looks up at him with a little shake of her head, and it makes him think of when she shook her head on her knees, and he’ll be damned if he’s not getting half aroused again.

“They’re yours now, remember?” and Sandor groans, dragging her back to his chest to kiss her, because she’s going to be the death of him.

 

It wasn’t as mortifying as she thought it would be, stepping out from behind the bar and back onto the patio, because as raucous and bawdy and dry-humor as the majority of Sonoita can be, it seems they all have a soft spot for love, because it’s mostly averted gazes and an intense focus on which sex is winning in cornhole. Sansa drifts away from Sandor after he buys her another glass of wine to replace the spilled one, and though she hates to be parted from him she does so under the pretense of checking on Genna, who has since left the swings to chase chickens in the paddock-turned-chicken yard down at the bottom of the hill. Margie is sitting astride the fence watching her run and cavort, shrieking when she gets close and running the other way.

“Did she ask about us?” Sansa says as lightly as she can once she’s standing beside Margaery, and her friend grins with a shake of her head.

“Didn’t even notice you two disappeared into whatever den of iniquity you discovered back there,” Margie says, making Sansa blush, but she nudges her with her jean clad knee. “Don’t get all mortified on _my_ account, I’ve been waiting you two to get together since I first laid eyes on you.”

“I suppose I’ve got you to thank for a certain rose, hmm?” Sansa says, laughing when Genna starts flapping her arms like wings, her little cowgirl boots a hot pink flash as she runs to and fro.

“Lord, no, that’s all Sandor. He picked it out, color and everything,” Margie says with a grin that’s a little too smug, a little too satisfied with herself, and Sansa wonders what other sorts of things Margaery is responsible for here in this desert town.

“Don’t leave,” he murmurs hours later, a sleepy tumble of deep voice. She pulled a Sandor and crept into his bed sometime before midnight and he was all too happy to accommodate her, and he hummed his approval when he saw that she was wearing the t-shirt he left on her bedroom floor. They have spent the last hour making out like teenagers, sweet and heavy and slow, drawn together now with an even bolder stroke after the afternoon’s exploration, unable to keep away from each other after everything they shared, and though she knows she should get back to her own bed it’s too tempting to stay, to tempting to cave in and listen to him.

“Tell me something,” she says, gazing out into the darkness outside his windows, her head resting on his chest. He has his arm around her and is drawing little circles and curlicues on her lower back, letting his fingertip dip under the elastic of her panties every now and then, causing a shiver and a memory to bloom together, and the covers are pulled up to their thighs, the nights have grown so warm now that its late May.

“Anything,” he says, making her smile, and she thinks on it a moment, as if it is one of three wishes granted to her by a genie, as if it is a precious boon that is not to be wasted, because coming from him it is. He was a tough nut to crack at first, and the slow opening of him has been heavenly to experience.

“Tell me about Genna,” she says, tipping her head to look up at him in what little light there is here in his sparse bedroom. “Tell me about that day in the photograph,” and he inhales deeply, letting the breath hang like a free fall before exhaling, and she knows that instead of shutting her own or digging his heels into the dirt, he’s putting his thoughts together, stringing words like beads on a chain to make his sentences count

“You know her mother died,” he says finally, and she nods against the warm skin of his chest, the faintest tickle of hair against her cheek. “I guess she got sick, _real_ sick, real quick. One of those aggressive cancers, you know. She never uh, she never brought Gregor around to meet her, Genna I mean, when she was born. I think she knew what my brother was capable of, more hate than love, no love at all, really. I don’t know how they hooked up or why, and to be honest I don’t _want_ to know.”

Sansa kisses his chest then, because she asked about Genna but now it’s Gregor, the monster who brutalized him so savagely as a boy, because she wants him to know there’s love here with them. Sandor seems to pick up on it because he breaks away from the story and the memory of it all to kiss the top of her head.

“So, anyways, she knew his name, first and last, and that suggests at least some kind of relationship. Part of me wonders if he knew her and took- if he knew her and then took advantage later on down the road. Fuck, I don’t know. But she knew him and when she got sick she wrote that Genna go to his next of kin, since she had no family to speak of. Maybe that’s why she got with him, because she just didn’t have anyone else. There was a phone call out of the blue one morning. It was late November. The poor woman died before Christmas, of all the goddamn luck,” he sighs, and Sansa wants to cry to imagine losing the fight, losing the joy of raising your child during such a time. "So, it was late November and Bronn and I are loading Christmas trees in people’s trucks, just shooting the shit. He was making fun of Margie or something, and then my cell phone rang.”

“And everything changed,” Sansa murmurs.

“Everything changed,” he repeats with a sigh. “There were lawyers and CPS workers, DNA tests and in a matter of weeks I uh, I filed for adoption,” he says, sounding shy now.

“Sandor, I didn’t know that,” Sansa says, lifting her head and turning on her stomach in the snug space between his arm and body, and she rests her chin on his chest to gaze at him.

“If I was going to be her guardian, then I wanted to do it right. Gregor never did, but that didn’t mean I had to be as big of a dick,” he says. "That picture she took was coming home after the adoption went through."

“So, that means you _are_ her daddy, in a way,” she says with a smile, and he huffs a laugh, a rumbling thunder cloud of a chuckle.

“Yeah, I guess it does,” he says, and then with another deep-chested inhale he rolls her over onto her back, propping himself above her with an elbow to the mattress, and the curtain of his loose hair blocks out the little light there was, and she is happy here, in the dark, woolly soft warmth of him. Sandor kisses her, her jaw where the first blind kiss lands and then her mouth, and she drags his hair back before holding him down to her.

“You tell me something now,” he says, a growling purr against her ear when he kisses his way there, making her think of dogs and wolves and coyotes, and she smiles; it’s a small thing, hardly worth what he told her, but then again she’s never adopted a child before.

“I have always wanted a dog,” she says, and she laughs when he snorts at such a scandalous confession. “What, it’s true. With five kids, my folks were just too tired and busy to deal with a pet. I used to call Rickon Fido when he was two or three,” and he laughs at that, and she grins to remember it. She tells him more of her family’s antics, how Robb bailed on college to go up to Alaska, how absolutely wild her sister Arya is, how her mother’s current pride and joy is finally having the time and energy to do something so simple for herself as join a book club.

It is late now, when they’re drowsing in each other’s arms, well past one o’clock in the morning, and she finally gains the strength of will to get back to her bed, though he mutters and snips that he’ll find her all the earlier in the morning for it, making her laugh like a school girl in the hall as she creeps down to her bed, but the laughter dies in her throat when Genna’s door opens, and before Sansa can think of what to do she is face to face with Sandor’s niece, standing in the square of light coming from her bedroom, and she wonders how long she’s been awake with the lights on.

“Hi Sansa,” she says sleepily, her voice so sweet and thin, so rag-tag-tumbly that she can’t help but smile down at her, despite the fact that she’s in her uncle’s shirt, and Sansa is for once grateful for how damned dark this house gets at night.

“Hi, honey, are you okay? Did you have a bad dream again?” She crouches down to bring herself to eye level with Genna who shakes her head in the negative, much to Sansa’s relief.

“I had to go potty and I want to sleep with daddy,” she says, and then she must realize that Sansa has emerged from the wrong bedroom. “Did you sleep there too? Did you have a nightbare, Sansa?” There is a painful twist in her heart to lie to this little girl, a sinking sort of feeling when she says she got lost on her own way to the bathroom, that they need to get a nightlight in this dark hallway, and she helps Genna go to the bathroom, watches as she traipses down the hall towards Sandor’s bedroom. There is a fear that the smell of her shampoo will be trapped in his sheets and Genna, clever little Genna will find out, and she barely sleeps at all that night, feeling like a fraud, feeling selfish for thinking of herself first before the child she was hired to look after, feeling an ache in her heart because she already misses him, feeling somehow _wrong_ for that because he’s her boss. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [And now with a picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/103562280408/kiss-the-girl-chapter-13-feels)
> 
> Another!

Once more he’s sneaking through his own house like a teenager, and he is buzzing off of a mere four hours’ of sleep when he creeps into her room, steals into her bed with a significant amount of stealth, but he’s then again he’s had a couple of weeks’ practice. He slides himself like a spoon up against her back, buries his face in the sweet scent of her hair, and he smiles when the arm he’s got around her waist is draped over with hers.

“Is Genna still in your bed?” she asks sleepily, her voice faded out and tired, and he huffs in surprise.

“How’d you know she came to my bed?” he asks, pressing a kiss to her neck once he’s nuzzled her hair away with his nose and his face. She is flowers and fruit, some intoxicating blend of scents from shampoos and lotions, all the soft things in this world he’s never familiarized himself with, and now he thinks he’s got the hang of it. _Flowers on her skin, fruit in that shampoo of hers._

“I ran into her in the hallway last night,” she says, and he freezes in his musings.  _Shit._ Genna hadn’t said a word of it to Sandor, she was so dopey drowsy, had simply fallen asleep next to him in an odd sort of replacement of the woman who’d been there before. It makes him feel strange. “If I had stayed just one minute longer she would have found us in bed, Sandor.” They have both played it cool around Genna to keep from confusing her, and to find Sansa half naked in panties and his shirt, tangled up in bed with him would be more than a little confusing. Sandor sighs.

“We’ll just be more careful,” he says to her hair, to the soft dip where her shoulder meets her neck, and he makes her sigh, makes her whimper and turn in his arms so she can kiss him.  Sansa moans when he pushes up the shirt she wears so he can feel her naked against his bare chest, and she tugs his hair, pulls his head back to kiss his throat. There is nothing he’d like more than to push inside her and finally take her, finally hand himself over to her, but there’s no chance, not with Genna here and still asleep in his room, not when they were so close to discovery last night.

But he can kiss her as if they’re fucking instead of writhing half clothed together, he can get as close to her as he dares, and she cries out, muffled against his mouth, when he slides his hand down her belly and finds her wet. She twists onto her back, legs falling open under the covers to give him more room to work her over, and he props himself up on an elbow to watch her, kiss her as she arches her back and rolls her hips up, and then she’s reaching into his boxers, taking him by the hand, tugging on him with the same intensity and rhythm he’s using on her. She is a pulse and a squeeze around his fingers when he comes with her, she’s wet like a rainstorm in his hand, she is gasping and parted mouth and  _perfect,_  ever perfect. He takes his shirt off of her to clean her hand, to clean himself off, and if he’s honest with himself to have the sight of her in nothing but white cotton panties and that flush from the orgasm he’s given her.

“You should go,” she murmurs sometime later, when he’s half asleep with his head against her breast, her nipple close enough to kiss though he is content to just stay here with her fingers in his hair, fingers running down the plane of scarring. “You’ve been here an hour, she could wake up any minute,” she says, and he lifts his head to give her a frown, because she sounds sad. She sounds tired, yes, but she also sounds sad, and while he is loath to leave her he is still cresting the high from being with her, from having her again in whatever furtive way he can.

“You okay?” He tries to read her expression here in the half-dark, but either there is nothing to read or he is still illiterate when it comes to some of her expressions.  

“We already came close to getting busted, mister,” she says with a smile, reaching up to drag the hair from his eyes with four fingernails to his scalp. “And I didn’t sleep much last night,” she adds when his frown won’t go away, but  _that_  is something he can help, because it’s Saturday and they’ve only got a sunset horseback ride with Bronn and Margie.

“Sleep, then. I’ll take Genna to the greenhouse with me, the weekends are yours anyways,” and the smile warms up as she gets up, crawling over him to get another shirt to wear lest Genna storm her room while she’s basically naked.  He sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, and stares at the pale curve of her back, the nipped in cinch of her waist when her arms lift to let the loose shirt fall into place, and then the view is stolen away from him.

“Go one, get out of here,” she says with a laugh, swatting his hands away from her hips when he tries to grab her and drag her onto his lap. “You’re going to get us in trouble,” she says after he kisses her, and finally he acquiesces and stands, tugging her covers off her body much to her amused irritation, because at the end of the day he’s the boy on the playground throwing pebbles at the pretty girl.

He lets his final look linger on her, the crook of her bent leg as it sticks out of the covers, the tangled red hair and the way the light is filtering in through her blinds, the way it lights up the dried lavender rose hanging upside down by a ribbon in front of her window. “All right, fine. You’re the boss, little bird,” he says with a grin before turning to go, but her words stop him in his tracks.

“No, Sandor, you are,” she says in a low voice, and he turns to look at her keenly. There is that stubborn flare he’s gotten to know, the part of her with the sharp teeth beginning to rear up.

“Sansa,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest as he steps back into her room, this feminine world of hers he has so recently been allowed access to. There’s a fear there that his privileges will be revoked, with that look on her face, but then she yawns with a great sigh afterwards.

 “Sorry, I think I’m just tired. I don’t think I slept at all last night,” she says with a shake of her head, and now he feels badly, coming into her room at dawn every day since the morning after that night, that one night that will stay with him for all his days.

“I’ll uh, I’ll just leave you be, then, okay?” and she says _Thank you,_ polite as you can be, and Sandor is left standing in the hallway with a stained t-shirt and a hundred questions in his mind, but there is no time to mull them over, no time to tease them apart and maybe find an answer to at least one of them. He pads down the hall and back to his bedroom, is relieved that Genna is still zonked out from her interrupted sleep, and now he’s not sure what to do with himself.

He moved the workout shit to the garage but he kept his desk in his room and so he sits there after brewing himself coffee, and it’s strange having Sansa in her bed and Genna in his; there is a deep, _deep_ secret part of him that doesn’t understand why they’re not both here in his room with him, and it makes him feel greedy. Sandor sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands before shuffling through the myriad of papers on his desk. Cable bills, internet bills, utility bills, and without really wanting to he falls into organizing everything, writes checks and stuffs envelopes, and then when he’s tallying everything up in his ledger he freezes, his pen hovering over the column marked “GENNA NANNY” and her words come up to haunt him. Suddenly it feels weird when he forces himself to write out the check to Sansa Stark, even weirder when he realizes he forgot to pay her last week, so consumed was he with these secret kisses and back room encounters.

 _Fuck this,_ he thinks, slapping shut his checkbook and standing. Sandor never liked paying bills anyways, and when Genna finally wakes up, when the house is full of her bubble and her laughter as she hunts him down, he is watching shitty Saturday television with a scowl on his face.

“Trouble in paradise already?” Bronn tells the kind of jokes that would make a twelve year old snort with laughter but he’s nothing if not perceptive. They’ve only been on this ride twenty minutes and already he’s up in Sandor’s business, urging his palomino Nugget up to where Stranger and Sandor ride ahead, because the increasing tension between Sansa and him has finally tipped over from puzzling to irritating to lose-your-cool territory, and there is nothing he can do about it, nothing he can say to draw her out of this withdrawn bubble she’s locked herself up in, and now Sandor doubts everything.

“How would I know, I’ve never been,” Sandor snaps, and Bronn chuckles as he reins in his horse once Sandor sighs and brings Stranger down to a walk.

“Well we went to Rocky Point in the 90’s, that was pretty cool,” he says, “and then from what Margie tells me you probably saw some version of paradise over at Hops and Vines yesterday.” _Yesterday,_ he thinks with a scowl. _Just a day and somehow I’ve already fucked it up. I didn’t want to fuck it up, and here we are._

“I think the boss-employee thing is getting to her,” he says finally, giving a glance behind to where Genna rides on Margie’s paint with her, and Sansa rides on docile old Penny beside them, and they are at least ten lengths behind them.

“I’ve seen a _lot_ of porn, and I am not seeing a problem here,” Bronn laughs, but he sobers soon enough when he can’t even get a rise out of Sandor, because that’s starting to weigh on his mind, wondering if Sansa thinks he’s using her. “As annoying as it is when Margie tells me we have to talk about shit, maybe you just, you know, need to talk about it,” he says, eyes widening from the obviousness of this fix.

“I tried this morning, but she brushed me off. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if I’m supposed to leave her alone or ask her questions. I don’t- There’s never been- I just don’t fuckin’ know, okay?”

“Do you love her, man?” Bronn is serious, _Thank fucking Christ_ , a steady squint beneath the bill of his faded old baseball hat. “Margie and I have said you do, said she loves you back, but I don’t think I’ve heard you confirm or deny the charge.” Nugget shies when Stranger tries to nip him, and the two men struggle to manage their horses while Sandor thinks about it.

He thinks of when he first met her, the way she told him she’d bite a coyote if need be, thinks of her hair up in a sloppy bun to match Genna’s hairdo when they made breakfast, the way she held her ground in the greenhouse and how she clung to him on the back of the four wheeler. He thinks of Genna curling up beside her on the sofa, how rich it felt to carry her to the house and the slow sweet way she tilted herself into him that time they almost kissed before going to Congress. And then there’s the feel of her panties in his hands, his mouth pressed to her cunt and the way she moved for him, the way she got down on her knees for him, how it felt to hold her in his bed as she asked for parts of him and gave him some of her past in return.

“Yeah,” he says, taking off his hat to swipe his forearm across his sweaty brow before plunking his hat back on his head. “Yeah, I do, I love her,” and then he asks Bronn to ride ahead with Margie and Genna, and he wheels Stranger around to lope back to where Sansa rides.

 

“Something tells me Bronn wants me,” Margie says with a smirk, which is the understatement of the year considering he’s hollering _MARGIE GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE_ and waving his baseball hat in the air like he’s trying to alert an airplane from a desert island. She clucks to her horse and wraps her arm around Genna before kicking up into what Sansa has learned is called a lope down here, instead of the slightly faster canter, and her honey blonde hair bounces as she passes Sandor who is approaching her. Sansa’s heart starts pounding to see him ride that beast of a horse towards her, and the black of Stranger’s coat is in direct contrast to the white grass under his hooves, though he and Sandor seem to be cut from the same cloth.

It’s all a beautiful mess to her, the way he sits his horse, holding the reins one handed, the blinding flash of sun on the mirrors of his sunglasses, the way he’s pushed the long sleeves of his navy blue t-shirt up to his elbows. He stuns her and he takes her breath away, he stokes the heat inside her that he lit in the first place and he breaks her heart, and so she is speechless when he slows to a trot and circles her and Penny, managing to keep Stranger reined in to walk at her older horse’s steady pace.

“I want to talk to you,” he says, speaking to his saddle horn more than to her, and here he is now, the big gruff man who can get shy at the drop of a hat, who can withdraw and look all the more vulnerable for how he closes himself off. She thinks she might love him for it now, when at first it drove her crazy, only a matter of two months’ difference, and it’s night and day, though it’s no less painful, no less shattering.

“Same here,” she says, and she hates what she has to say. Sansa takes a deep breath. “Sandor, I can’t do this,” she says, and he starts in his saddle at those words so violently that Stranger tosses his head, which in turn makes Penny nervous, makes her sidestep away from the bigger black horse with the reputation of nipping and kicking. Sansa is no horsewoman, and it takes her some time to shush the old mare and get her walking straight once more.

“What the hell does that mean? You ‘can’t do this’? We’ve barely even _started_ this,” he says, at once impatient and exasperated, and she realizes she’ll have to be tougher than the gentle she wanted to be.

“I can’t be running into your daughter in the middle of the night on the world’s shortest walk of shame, okay?” she snaps, and she tries to calm down the moment she sees his indignation. _Can’t he see how much this hurts?_

“ _Shame?_ Is that- are you- is it really that bad, being with me, huh?” and just like that he’s angry, holding the reins in one hand as if it’s nothing, gesturing impatiently with his other hand waving in the air. It’s such a rapid ascent of emotion but she supposes she should have been prepared for it.

“Hey, I am talking about _me_ , right now, not you,” she says but he circles around her again, and even though he’s wearing his mirrored shades she can _feel_ the glare he gives her.

“We’re talking about you but we’re talking about _me,_ too. We’re talking about us, for fuck’s sake. I’m a fucking part of this,” he growls, maneuvering Stranger in a circle around her again so that now he rides on her right side. She feels the tug of possession, the desire to be his, to get on the back of that nasty horse and ride away with him, but nothing is ever that easy, much to her sorrow.

“You know what I mean, dammit. Tiptoeing around, the help sleeping around with king of the castle,” and she is surprised when tears spring to her eyes. _Don’t, not now, buck up, Sansa, be tougher than this,_ but it’s hard because she thinks she’s in love with him, knows she’s in love with Genna, but it’s too hard and it’s too complicated.

“Sansa, for Chrissakes, slow down. King of the castle? The help? Look, I know- I know the employer thing bothers you but can’t we figure it out?”

“Figure out what,” she says, angrily swiping the back of her hand beneath one eye and then the other, and she bumps her glasses nearly off her nose in the process and suddenly she’s as grouchy as he is, swearing under her breath as she fixes them back in place. “I work for you, Genna is my _job,_ Sandor. I love her, I love- I love her, okay, and I don’t want her hurt. I feel- I _think,_ ” she says, because once Myranda told her men listen better to words like ‘think’ instead of words like ‘feel’ and she is determined to be heard, “I think that she could get hurt, okay? If we um, you know, if we do this and it doesn’t work out. I can’t- I couldn’t stay there, with you, if we didn’t work out, but I don’t want to leave her,” Sansa says, and now she’s crying in earnest. Sandor looks horrified, reaches out to her but lets his hand drop before they make contact, and she is torn asunder to see his hand fall empty back to his thigh. _I did that,_ she thinks, and it’s already hard to catch her breath she is struggling so feebly under the weight of her tears.

“I don’t want you to leave her, but I don’t want you to leave me behind, either,” he says, voice lowering into that surly grunt of his. “Why can’t we just tell her, Sansa?”

“She lost her mom already, okay, and if something were to happen, if we didn’t work out, then she’d lose someone else. I don’t want to do that, Sandor. I couldn’t do that.”

“I don’t want to let go of this, for fuck’s sake. I’ve finally- for the first time, Sansa… No. No, dammit, I say no,” and he leans over to grab her horse’ reins, to stop her ambling pace, and he’s got two beasts under his thumb now, the head-tossing, hoof-stamping horse the color of a nightmare and the nut brown Penny who rolls her eyes in anxiety to be so tethered to Stranger. It is a moment as fraught with tension as it could be, and Sansa feels sick in the pit of her stomach.

“Think about Genna, Sandor,” Sansa says, clearing her throat to try and master herself, and it’s bitterly futile, because she’s pushing him away when all she wants his _him,_ to be in his bed or have him in hers, but then there’s the patter-smatter of little girl feet in her ear, the crying in the middle of the night, the weight of her little body and the smell of California Baby shampoo mingling with the smell of her sweet early morning sweat. “We’ve got to think of her.”

“I do think of her, for fuck’s sake,” he snaps, flinging the reins back towards Penny’s neck, and both horses snort and toss their heads at the action, Stranger backing up while Sansa’s mare tries to shy away, and the quick movement scares her because she’s not good with horses. “You don’t think she’s constantly on my mind? You don’t think I’ve put her first every _fucking_ second of the day since she came here?” Stranger seems to dance with the agitation emanating from Sandor, and there is a hot, terrifying moment when Sansa thinks the feisty horse will rear up but Sandor coaxes his down, mad as he himself is. “What about me, huh? When do I get to think about myself, about _you,_ for fuck’s sake?”

“Hey,” she snaps, and she wishes she could make the twenty year old mare prance beneath her like Stranger, because to stand here on an old horse under the baking sun suddenly isn’t good enough for her. It’s weak and pathetic and it speaks _nothing_ for what she feels right now. “I’m trying to think for all of us, because I can’t break Genna’s heart, I refuse to do so, Sandor, I can’t hurt her,” she says, but then he laughs. It’s as bitter as used up coffee grounds and as black as the horse he rides.

“Yeah, you can’t hurt her, I get it, but there’s someone you can hurt, isn’t there, little bird?” and now she sobs.

“Sandor, please, I don’t- I can’t- please don’t call me that, not now,” she says. There is a moment where even his fidgety, hateful horse stops and they stare at each other under the cook of the sun and the whip of the wind, all elements out to torture them today, He finally rips off his sunglasses to stare at her incredulously, and Sansa wonders what she’s lost now, to see him so miserably, cruelly shut off from her. She thinks of his mouth on her, his name on her lips and the way his heart beat steadily beneath her ear when he talked about Genna, and she wonders what she did to be put in this horrible situation, to be so horrifically torn.

“Fine, _Poppins,_ enjoy your fucking weekend off,” he finally says before digging his heels into Stranger's sides and galloping off, and it’s a demotion, one she feels so painfully, and it’s through hiccups and sobs that she coaxes her old horse to follow the trail of the others, and it’s cursing his name and wishing to moan it again, wanting to slap him across the face and kiss his scars, and she’s lost and she hates it, she’s found and she couldn’t be more miserable.

 “Take a wide arc on _that_ door,” Bronn says when he gestures to Stranger’s stall with a valiant attempt at amiability, because she’s not stupid and she can tell he knows something’s wrong. Bronn and Margie play stupid cupid with them all the time, but it’s a careful lightness now, here in their ramshackle barn where Bronn parks his truck in one of the stalls. Sandor is a bustle to the left and right of Stranger, is a shuffle and scuff of hay on the floor, and Sansa thinks she’d be better off inside the house where Margie and Genna are currently holed up. But she wants to be helpful and can see where Margaery hung up her tack, and she’s trying to the same when she crosses the barn on sore legs. There is a thud and a horse's scream when Sandor backs out of the stall.

“Sansa, get back,” he says, shoving her shoulder so hard she nearly falls forward onto her knees, but then she turns back in time to see Sandor, tall man as he is, get practically dwarfed when Stranger rears up before slamming back down to his forefeet, halfway out of his stall. Sandor has his arms outspread to keep Stranger away from her, but he turns away to check on her, has _Hey, are you okay_ on his tongue before he bellows out in pain when Stranger snaps his teeth onto his shoulder.

“Fucking _asshole,_ ” Sandor shouts, pinching the horse’s snout until he lets go, and then both creatures back away from each other, high strung, irritable and wary, although only one of them is covered in blood.

“Sandor, oh my God,” she says, watching as he holds his arms out wide to corral the beast back in its stall, and once Stranger is confined he storms past her out of the barn towards Bronn and Margie’s. “Sandor, please, are you all right? There’s blood,” she starts, but he waves her off.

“Just give it a fucking rest, all right?” he says over his bleeding shoulder, and Sansa turns to glare at the black horse whuffing and stamping in his stall, just as Bronn gains the fortitude to slide shut his stable door.

“What’s the point of such an animal,” she says bitterly, hugging herself as she recalls the look of pain on Sandor’s face and the wild roll of Stranger’s eyes. “He’s not fit to be around people.”

“Well, just because he’s misunderstood, that means I should pack him off to the glue factory? He’s just different. I’d think you of all people should understand that, right?” Bronn says with a jerk over his shoulder towards the house. “Look, Stranger may be a willful horse, but I bought him and I made the commitment. It’s not his fault he was an abused animal,” he says, shrugging almost apologetically when Sansa turns to stare at him with her mouth open, and if she thought she wanted to cry earlier it’s because she hadn’t yet met the moment when Bronn leaves her alone in the stable to stare at a surly horse that only makes her think of a man she’s in love with, a man who was abused, a man she pushed away.

 

Margie tells him to take off for home, that she’ll get Sansa and Genna home after he’s cooled off, but he walks anyways, telling her to give Sansa the keys to his truck, because what does it even matter, anymore? Words like _barely there_ and _almost_ dance their vicious reels around his head as he showers, the water raining down a parade of pain on an already beaten man. The bite wound stings like a bitch, and he thought he was safe, here in his bathroom, in what one could consider the literal opposite side of the house from the front door, but then Genna finds him out, and he’s hoisting her up in his arms despite the agonizing pain. Sandor walks her out of the bathroom in his track pants and bare feet, hears the running of bathwater and assumes Sansa will hole herself up in there, but then the door opens with a brisk _Okay, Genna-benna, time to get-_ and then they are face to face in the hallway.

It’s a lot in this narrow space, too much for him to handle. Her damned mouth has dropped open as they stare at each other. She’s kicked off her boots and he sees her toes, painted a poppy red, peeking out from under the cuffs of her jeans, and he realizes he’s never touched her feet. He can see the wind has torn into her hair, has divvied it up in those wiry pieces he likes to undo with his fingers, and it makes him grit his teeth and look at the floor.

“Daddy, it’s my tub time,” Genna says happily, perfectly oblivious to this stalemate, this torture, this sneering pain. _It was better before she came,_ he thinks, _because I didn’t feel a fucking thing,_ and then when he sets down his niece – _daughter? I don’t even know anymore_ – there is more pain, pain in his shoulder and pain when Genna runs away from him to the bath, already taking off her dirty little shirt so she can clamor into the tub. Sansa and he stare at each other in silence to the tune of Genna splashing around like a trout in there. He would smile at the sound, if he had any of those left to give, so instead he just brushes by, wishing he kept the A&D ointment in his bathroom instead of by the kitchen sink where he so often doctors himself up.

“Holy shit,” Sansa says when he brushes past her, but he doesn’t turn back because it hurts too much in the shoulder and the heart and yeah, maybe the scarred part of him too. He makes it to the kitchen, finding a clean dishrag he figures he’ll maybe sling back there to cool the heat of the bite before trying to dab on the medicine, but then she’s there, touching him with a finger when his back is towards her. He hisses from the pain as much from the delight of her touch, from the confliction of both, and he sits like a good boy on one of the stools at the counter, a man defeated with his head bowed and his stupid black heart on his sleeve when she takes that cloth and dabs at the bite. _Fucking horse_.

“You don’t have to, for fuck’s sake,” he says, but she _No-no’s_ him, has her hand on his shoulder as she cleans the wound with the other, and then it’s the dull dab and stab of whatever woman tricks she’s up to back there, with the ointment and gauze, but when she leans in and he feels the tickle of her long hair against his bare back he shakes himself free from this lie. Because it _is_ a lie. This is bullshit. Whatever he thought for the past two weeks was, in the end, nothing. So are these touches of hers, these hollow cruel things, and he stands swiftly to get away from her pliant hands.

“Goddammit, little- Sansa, just stop it,” he says, and there’s another moment of standing and staring, and she is devastation and hurt, and how they can both apparently feel the same damned way but be on opposite sides of the playing field is beyond his understanding.

“I know it’s been a rough day, but _please,_ you’re still bleeding and I need to tape down the gauze,” she says, looking down at the little wheel of white tape in her hands, and he laughs bitterly with a shake of his head. He surrenders to her with a long rushing sigh, leaning down with his elbows to the counter, and he listens in silence to the tear of tape, closes his eyes when she presses it down onto his skin, and when she’s done he twists on the stool, snaring her by the waist, and he drops his head to her shoulder, eyes still squeezed shut to feel the tentative touch to his unbound, damp hair. _One more touch,_ he thinks. _One more time._

“How can you just come into my world and  _change_   _everything,_ bend  _everyone_  to your will? You come here, you wrap the whole town around your finger, you stir everything up and then you back away from me, you act like it can just go back to how it was, but it _can't_ , Sansa. You have _ruined_ me," he murmurs, heaving a sigh as he squeezes her hips before standing and walking away from her to go sit with Genna, the sound of sniffling tears on his back, and they sting and they burn as much as the bleeding wound bit into his skin.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset!](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103686690887/kiss-the-girl-by-jillypups-chapter-14-picset)  
>  [Second one](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104099708308/kiss-the-girl-chapter-14-feels-lol-oops-i)

She’s washing her hands from cutting up slices of ham and cheese for Genna’s lunch in half an hour, once the bus drops her off after school, eyes on her task as she watches the lather build, when she sees movement on the periphery. Sansa looks up and freezes when she sees him walking down around the side of the house, all shoulder blades and black hair, wiping his hands on a faded red handkerchief that he jams in his back pocket before opening the greenhouse door. A sigh escapes her and she closes her eyes with a shake of her head; she didn’t even hear his truck rumble up and it makes her wonder if he parked in the road so as not to alert her. It wouldn’t surprise her. He has avoided her like the plague for the past week, speaking in clips and phrases, grunts and rolls of his eyes, and they have come to the silent agreement that Sansa essentially disappear when he comes home. Now that it’s June the sun doesn’t set until Genna’s bedtime and the house is a tomb each night when Sansa hears the door click open, hears the thud of his boots when he takes them off. It is quiet enough each night to hear him sigh, to hear the sorrow ride the exhalation of his breath.

Sansa dreams of him every night, of the way he used his tongue and his fingers on her, how his beard felt on the insides of her thighs as he kissed her into oblivion in the wine room, and she wakes up so aroused and bereft that she usually cries herself to sleep after making herself come. She lives life as she did when she first arrived in Sonoita, holed up in her room reading books and magazines, downloading stories to her Kindle, all while she listens to him move around the house; bare feet to the kitchen and back to his room, the sound of the sliding glass door before he will disappear in the greenhouse for hours. It has been, in all honesty, the worst, most heartbreaking week of her life, and she went through hell the last semester at Whitworth.

There is the slap of the greenhouse door that rouses her from her tear-damp thoughts and she cannot help but watch as he strides up towards the house, and she is about to turn away, about to at the very least drop her gaze to the water running over her hands, but then he lifts his head and looks right at her through the window over the sink, and she very nearly cries when he stops dead in his tracks to stare at her. It reminds Sansa of Rickon’s old cartoons, the long line of black powder that is lit on fire, how it crackles and burns on the way to the keg of dynamite. She is assaulted by a thousand thoughts and regrets, attacked by a thousand feelings that drive into her brain and pierce her heart, that blow oxygen on the heat she feels between her legs whenever she sees him. She feels like an animal, like she is reduced to only primal things, things like lust and pain, hunger and thirst and the need of him like shelter in a storm.

 _Please,_  she thinks as they stare at each other, though she doesn’t know who she’s begging or what she’s asking for.  _For all this misery to go away,_  she thinks, and finally she tears herself away from the window, shutting off the water and walking with wet hands to the bathroom where she bursts into tears. She wrenches the shower on and takes off her running shorts and sports bra, leaves them in a sweaty pile by the shut door, and she washes off the dust from her run earlier that morning, she washes off the way he looked at her, the way he’s ignored her all week, but try as she might she can’t quite seem to wash away the tears. They fall, they pay no mind to her determination to see them gone, and it’s not until she shuts off the hot water and stands under the bone jarring cold with her face upturned in the stream that they finally stop, her mind too full of how freezing she is now to pay attention to her heartache.

Sansa shivers as she wraps the towel around her body, thinks her blood must have already thinned out here in Arizona because it’s almost summer now and it’s warm in this house, and she is about to wrap the second towel around her hair when the bathroom door bangs open. A scream lights up in the back of her throat, she’s so startled, and the adrenaline adds another shiver to her limbs as she looks up at Sandor standing there, chest heaving, hand still on the door knob as he stares at her, a man dying of thirst beneath the desert sun.

“Sandor, what are you  _doing_  here,” she exclaims when she’s found her voice, when it claws its way up from the pit of her stomach, where it laid limp to have him in such close proximity to her after so many days of isolation.

“I can’t handle this, Sansa,” he says, voice hoarse, and it’s low and heavy like a full moon, pulling at her as if she is the ocean and he dictates when she moves and how. “I catch one glimpse of you and I can’t think straight. I can’t even remember why I was coming up to the fucking house,” he says, and she swallows when her eyes drop and she sees his hand leave the door knob, arcing towards her. “You drive me crazy, I can’t- don’t make me,” he says, though what she’s making him do she doesn’t know, because his words die, just like that, once his fingers run down her arm, shoulder to wrist and back again. “Damn you, Sansa,” he whispers.

“Sandor, please,” she says, backing against the wall next to the bathtub, but he’s not a man to step away from a challenge, to back away from  _her,_  and he steps further into the small room, heady with the humidity of her shower, warm and thick even though she blasted the cold for several seconds, and she squeezes her thighs together from inside the towel when he braces his arm against the wall beside her head, chin dropping as he looks at her.

“Please, what? Tell me, go on, lie to me and tell me you feel  _nothing,_ ” he says, and she rests her head back against the wall as her eyes slide closed, because it  _would_  be a lie to tell him that. It would be a lie to say anything except  _I love you and I want you._  His hand moves from her shoulder across the curve of her collarbone, and she is panting like a feral animal when the tips of his fingers drop down her chest to where the damp towel is wrapped around her breasts. “Tell me,” he repeats, and she is so lightheaded, from the shower and from crying, from seeing him outside and having him so close to her now that she cannot speak.

Sandor’s fingers push down between her skin and the towel, disappear between her breasts and he tugs, just once, pulling her off the wall towards him, and she goes willingly, a sigh escaping her upturned mouth that’s waiting for the brush of beard before he claims his kiss, but then the front door, unlocked in anticipation of Genna’s arrival home, swings open and there is the sound of her little shoes trotting on the concrete and the echo of her shrill  _SANSA I HAVE TO GO POTTY_ and once more they are seconds from discovery. She slams back to earth and all the complications push up between them like weeds from the soil, and even Sandor feels it because he releases her, and she’s so weak-kneed she slumps against the wall again.

“Oh my god,” she gasps, flung into a panic, and she looks up in the fathomless gray of his eyes, and for once he doesn’t look so smugly sure of himself as he does when he’s around her. “Go, get in, now,” she hisses, wrenching open the shower curtain and pushing him in there.

“Sansa, what the fuck, I  _live_  here, it’s okay if I’m home,” he says, as if he forgets the very clear implications of the two of them being in this room together, the bathroom she only shares with Genna, with her soaking wet and naked save for a towel. There is no time to remind him of this though, and when the curtain is in place and he’s hidden from view she turns in time to see Genna bound into the room with her little shorts halfway down her bottom. Sansa helps her to her task as the little girl chats blithely about her day, legs swinging as she uses the toilet, and once she’s finished with washed hands she looks up brightly to Sansa.

“I saw daddy’s truck in the street,” she says, and Sansa thinks  _Aha_ with a sad smile, her eyes flicking to the closed shower curtain. “Is he home?”

“Um, I think he’s in the greenhouse. You can go check after I’ve gotten dressed. Why don’t you come help me pick out something to wear. Should I wear a dress or pants?”

“Dress!” Genna says, and so they march out single file across the hall to her room, and she keeps her ears pricked to hear him as Genna pulls about five dresses off their hangers before deciding. There is the slow, careful metallic slide of the curtain on its rings and after that she hears nothing. If she was worried he would leave wet, muddy footprints she underestimated him, because there is no sign he was even there with her, no sign save the dirty hand towel bunched up outside the sliding glass door, but even Genna pays it no mind when she runs down to the greenhouse after lunch. Sansa sits in a slump at the table, resting her forehead on her folded arms, because she can’t do this either, anymore, and the sticky situation she’s landed in is threatening to consume her, to break her down and leave nothing left.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Sandor says before swigging his Tecate from the back of Bronn’s pickup, watching as his friend aims his grandfather’s lever action rifle before reinserting his ear plugs. Bronn stills a moment and then fires, and the old beer can hops off the fence post, flips in the air with a metallic  _ding_  before landing a foot back. His friend shakes his head as he walks back to the truck. After the shower incident with Sansa, after he hung out with Genna for a few minutes he took off to the nursery, was so agitated that Bronn told him point blank they were going to close up and go shoot guns and drink beer.  _I’ll just text Margie to leave the roses at home ‘til Monday,_  he’d said, and now they’re on a corner of Bronn’s property, shooting at the empties that were rolling around in the bed of his truck and while Sandor is a good shot and enjoys the occasional afternoon of plinking, right now he’d rather have the beer.

“Are you going to fire her? Send her packing back up to Washington?” Bronn asks as he reloads, pushing the bullets into the breach before racking the lever forward and back and handing it to Sandor. The thought of doing that to her, kicking her out of the house, casting her out of town makes him sick to his stomach.

“I couldn’t do that, not unless she wanted to leave,” he sighs, taking the rifle and setting down his beer. “But I can’t live like this anymore, man, it’s fucking killing me,” he says, and it is. It’s ruined his sleep, and what little of it he manages is always ruined by dreams of her, and he has become a ghost in his own house, waiting until she’s asleep or in her room to watch television or grab something to eat. He’s starving again throughout the day because the lunches have stopped, everything has stopped except the painful, dogged beating of his heart, and every damned pulse of his blood says  _Sansa._  

But the thought of his house without her, the way Genna would fall to pieces and the way he’d himself shatter is as daunting, as chilling a thought as living out his days in constant, dead-ended agony. He’s already nailed himself to the cross by withdrawing from her while she still lives under his roof, but to see her go, to feel the loss of her, the absence of her would be the end of him. Sandor is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

He widens his stance and brings the rifle up to his unscarred cheek, and he has to take several seconds not only to aim but to push her out of his head so he can concentrate, and once he’s got a can in his sights he fires, pumps the lever and shoots again and again, down the fence, and knocks more over than he misses. Not as good as he usually is, but then nothing is right with him these days. He’s off balance like a table with uneven legs, he is a man without a country, and he has always felt at home here in this two horse town.

“What was it like, in the beginning? When she was too young and you had to wait for her?” he asks as he heads back to the truck, setting the rifle down on its soft felt carrying case. Sandor thinks about waiting two years for Sansa, wonders if he could do it, knows he could so long as he could be sure she’d be there as the outcome, the prize, the solution to every problem he seems to have these days. But Bronn wasn’t sure either back then, and so Sandor seeks out hope in the history of his friends.

“I remember jacking off a _lot,_ ” Bronn says as he cracks open a beer, and even Sandor has to laugh, a barking _Heh_ because he walked right into that one, and because he’s been a bit of a randy teenager himself since she came to town. _Sandor, Sandor, Sandor_ whips through his mind and he remembers the taste of her on his tongue, the weight of her thighs on his shoulders and the pull of her hands in his hair and he suppresses a shudder.

“You know what I mean,” Sandor says, swigging his beer, and Bronn does. To his credit he’s a lot a deeper than he gives people reason to think, makes Sandor think of _Still waters run deep_ because while he hasn’t moved an inch, still lives in his late father’s ranch house and still pulls weeds like he did a hundred years ago, Bronn’s got heart.

“It was miserable,” Bronn shrugs. “It was agony because _she_ was ready, but there was no way I could date someone that young. So I was waiting and trying to do the right thing, but it was murder. Agony. The worst pain I ever felt, and I even broke my leg falling off of Nugget,” he says with a grin down to his beer before swigging it. “I still remember when she wore me down and we finally hooked up, when I finally got to run around town with her on my arm,” he chuckles. “Jesus I never felt so torn between being a dirty old man and the happiest bastard on the face of the planet. But I reckon you know exactly what _that_ feels like, huh?”

Sandor wants to laugh, but it’s painful because it’ already over and done with. Bronn sighs, and apparently even _he_ runs out of jokes, even he can let the sadness of a situation get under his skin. They drink their beers in silence as the sun beats down, and the line of oaks and ash following his property line sway in the lazy breezes. He wonders what Sansa is doing. He wishes she was here with him, drinking lukewarm beer on the back of this truck. He imagines it for a moment, just a fleeting image of her hair tucked up under her college baseball hat and the length of her throat when she laughs at some dumb shit Bronn says, her long legs in those short sundresses she’s always wearing, and he imagines her warm skin if he laid a hand on her knee. It hurts his heart.

“But it was worth it, you know?” Bronn adds after a while. “The waiting, the pain, the risk. So, I don’t know, just make it worth it. Figure it out somehow, would you? You deserve to be happy, buddy. Christ knows you’ve waited long enough for it.”

Sandor _Hmmphs_ at that because while he’s never thought he _deserves_ it he has always hoped maybe it would still happen. He got halfway there with Genna, and then Sansa walked up to him the airport, a swing of auburn and a sway of hips. _She shared her fries with me,_ he thinks, feeling like a lovesick fool. He ponders Bronn’s words and then he rolls his eyes.

“For someone who’s so happy, you sure seem to be taking your sweet ass time walking down the aisle, huh?” Sandor slides a glance to his friend and he throws his head back in such a burst of laughter his hat falls off his head onto the six pack of beer on the bed behind him.

“Here we go again,” Bronn says with a shake of his head. “Margie been talking to you or something?” and while he tries his damnedest to look bored and nonchalant, to be flippant with the roll of his eyes, Sandor thinks he sees something else under there, something that makes him smirk into his Mexican beer despite that despondent ache in his chest.

 

 

 **Bronn:** shit hit the fan, you better go talk to Red 

 **Margie:** What did he do now?? 

** Bronn:  ** fell in love

** Margie:  ** Well then what did SHE do??

** Bronn:  ** ask her yourself and work your magic, honey, he's fuckin miserable

** Margie:  ** I'll go see her after I drop off the roses.

** Bronn:  ** no wait don't, we closed for the day

** Margie:  ** Where the hell are you then??

** Bronn: **  drinking and plinking

** Margie:  ** Oh for Pete's sake. I'll leave dinner out for you two idiots.

** Bronn:  ** love you baby girl

** Margie:  ** Love you too, Bronny. Fix him ok?

** Bronn:  ** Trying to

 

Margaery bites her lip as she pulls up to Sandor and Sansa’s because it even _looks_ forlorn now, no truck in the drive, no shriek of wild little girl laughter whipping on the wind from the backyard, and she’s not entirely sure what she’s walking into, not after Bronn’s texts, not after the briefest text exchange she and Sansa have had in the near three months she’s been here. Just a _Hey sugar, thinking of stopping over for a minute_ and the only reply back, _Okay sure._ She slams shut the old Jeep door and sighs, running her fingers through her hair before lacing on a bright smile, because she will fix these two broken fools if it’s the last thing she does, because she’s been waiting for someone to drop into Sandor’s life since he pulled weeds at her dad’s place all those years ago, nothing but scars and a scowl and a heart that hadn’t even been broken because it had never been used.

“Spill it,” she says the minute Sansa answers the door, a moping long legged waif in a floral sundress with unbrushed hair falling in waves on either side of her face, her wavering smile doing nothing to mask the unshed tears in her eyes. Margaery quickly sets Genna up with a juice box and a video on Netflix and then she grabs a half full bottle of wine out of the refrigerator door and drags Sansa to the back porch. They are just in time too before the floodgate opens and the love of Sandor’s life bursts into tears. Margaery nods in sympathy as Sansa lets everything out, the sneaking around, the way their professional relationship kept cropping up to taint the passionate one, her crippling fear that any sort of romance with him could interfere with, undermine or somehow damage his relationship with Genna.

“So I just, I don’t know, I don’t think I can stay here but I don’t think I can leave. Either one will kill me,” she says with the all-consuming misery of someone who is hopelessly in love, and she sips her wine between hiccups. Margaery regards her and sighs as she sits back in her chair, confused as to how it can truly be this difficult. It is a matter of 1 + 1 = 2, and while Willas was always the math whiz of the family it’s still a problem she has no trouble solving.

“Do you love him, Sansa? Do you love Sandor or is it just some sort of infatuation?” It’s a mean question and she hates asking it, but it’s time to set aside the bullshit and the minced words, because they’ve danced around each other long enough, and the truth needs out. Sansa’s look of daggers is enough to tell her the truth but she hides her smile best as she can and sips her wine, eyebrows raised as if she’s waiting for the answer she already knows. Sansa glares at her for that split second of righteous indignation, and then she wilts, burying her face in one hand as she holds her wine in the other.

“I do, Margie. Oh my God, I tried not to but I can’t help myself. I’m so in love with him it hurts, and I screwed it all up. I pushed him away and I’ve made him miserable. He, I, oh my God,” she sighs with a sniffle, and now she tells her about earlier today in the shower, how he pinned her to the wall and demanded the truth Margaery has just now pulled from her, how she was so close to buckling but then Genna came in and reminded her of why it’s too damned difficult to try.

“When I first met Bronn I was fourteen, did you know that?” and Margaery laughs to see Sansa’s jaw drop. “Before you think it’s super scandalous, just know that he waited, actually refused to touch me until I could at least drive a car. Although I guess that doesn’t make him sound so noble, huh?” She grins to think on it, how big Bronn would back away from her, hands up as if she was holding him at gunpoint. _Short shorts are still a weapon, though,_ she thinks.

“So, what, he just waited around?” Sansa is already wound up in the story, sniffing against the back of her wrist as she gazes with interest, listens as Margaery tells her all about the pebbles thrown on her window, how she climbed down a trellis and Bronn picked the splinters from the bottoms of her bare feet, how they laid in the lawn he would mow each week staring at the stars and daring each other to kiss the other one first. “That’s beautiful,” Sansa whispers, and Margaery smiles because it was beautiful and it still is because it’s every day for her.

“You two could be beautiful too. You already are,” she says, and Sansa’s pretty face contorts in pain. “Why don’t you just quit the stupid job, Sanny? It is literally the only thing in the way, so just, you know, fuck the job. Quit. Steal his underwear so he fires you,” she says, and Sansa laughs through her tears, froggy from the force of her sobs and the way they don’t seem to have an end; they come from the bottomless well of her heart, bucket after bucket being hauled up and emptied, leaving her depleted in the struggle to make more.

“It’s _not_ the only thing in the way,” she says with a huff, sipping her wine. “It’s Genna. I would have to leave her if something went wrong, and I just couldn’t. She _just_ lost her mom,” Sansa says again, and she closes her eyes against a fresh stream of tears, and honestly it’s almost enough to make Margaery cry herself. She loves that little girl and understands Sansa’s devotion, but there’s something amiss here, and when she figures it out, she smiles and takes a deep sip of her wine.

“Do you want to leave Sonoita?”

“What? No, no, I want to stay. I love it here, I love everyone here,” she says, and the half glass of wine and the fatigue from feeling so much sadness has her laughing, because what she means is she loves Sandor.

“Okay, so just quit the stupid job and get another one. Stay here and just try dating Sandor. Being a roommate is way more, what’s the word, neutral? Yeah, neutral, it’s more neutral than being his au pair. But you’d still be here with her, just in a different way.” Sansa glances over her shoulder through the sliding glass door, reminded of her duty as she makes sure Genna is still on the sofa.

“But,” she starts, still gazing inside to where Sandor’s kid is jumping on the sofa and then landing with a _whump_ on her butt. Margaery sighs, is finished with excuses and roadblocks.

“Doesn’t Sandor deserve to be loved?”

Sansa whips around to stare at her with an open mouth, her hair a swish of red around her shoulders. She is aghast, mortified, appalled that Margaery could suggest otherwise and maybe a little appalled that essentially that’s what _she’s_ been suggesting with her behavior.

“Of _course_ he does, he’s- Sandor is- I mean, he’s _everything,_ ” she murmurs, gazing down into her wine glass, shy to admit he’s her world these days, shy and sad to admit that it’s this close to being destroyed, whatever was between the two of them. _Come hell or high water,_ Margaery thinks, _I’ll not let it happen._

“Honey, if it’s not you, it’ll either be no one or someone else, and either they’ll get married and make more babies or he’ll still get his heart broken. So do you want it to be you or someone else? I know you want to protect Genna, sweetie, but what you’re basically saying is that any attempt Sandor makes to find love will potentially hurt Genna, and that because of that risk he shouldn’t even try.” Margaery watches her face, the multitude of expressions that flicker by, and then there is a look of horror.

“Oh my God, what have I done,” she whispers, setting her glass down on the concrete by her bare feet, and Sansa buries her face in both hands now, and it hurts Margaery’s heart, pulling the rug out from beneath her like this to show that little thorn of truth now that she’s tugged it out from under her skin. “I never thought of it that way,” she says, voice small as a kitten.

“Oh, well,” Margaery says with a smile as she drinks her wine. “Being in love takes your smarts away and throws them to the wind. That’s why Bronn is still so stupid,” she grins, and Sansa laughs with a watery hiccup.

“You’re pretty smart, are you not still in love?” Sansa lifts her eyebrows at her, a flash of that spirited creature Sandor loves so well, that bright colored flower he so longs to pluck and cradle in the palm of his hand, if only she’d let him.

“That just shows you how much smarter I was to begin with,” she says, and when Sansa’s chuckle turns sad again, Margaery sobers. “Do me a favor, Sansa, think about what I said, okay? Quit the damned job. It’s not worth it if it’s tearing you two apart, and I honestly think you belong together. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him,” she says, leaning forward to rest a hand on Sansa’s knee, warmed from the sun in the late afternoon heat.

“But what about Genna?” Sansa asks, inhaling sharply in the space of her cupped palms before sitting up straight with a resolved sort of look on her face. “Who will take care of her if I’m working somewhere else? And _where_ will I work? There’s like five businesses in town,” she says, doubt creeping in and pruning away all the hope she’s worked so hard to plant, but Margaery waves her off.

“Genna also deserves to see her daddy love and be loved. She won’t grow up right if she knows she’s the only person Sandor loves, it’ll affect her and knowing how Gregor was, it won’t be for the good. Let her see you adore him, Sansa. Let her see him adore _you_. Let her learn from it. And don’t worry about the nanny thing, just leave it to me. _And_ I can think of _six_ places off the top of my head that are looking for help, so try another excuse, city mouse,” she grins, and Sansa laughs, her cheeks wet from tears, eyes all the bluer from them, and _There it is,_ Margaery thinks with triumph, _there’s the hope I wanted, and it lights her up like a Christmas tree,_ but up crops another road block built by Sansa Stark.

“What if he wants me to leave, though? What if, oh God, what if I pushed too hard and he won’t let me back in? He looked so shut down, Margie,” she says sadly, looking down at her fingers, twined like ribbons in her lap. “I’m so scared he’ll tell me to go to hell or something,” and it’s so melancholy, so deflated and so opposite of what he’d do, if Margaery knows him at all, and she’s pretty sure she knows him very well.

“Why are you so scared? You have to know he adores you, he just pounced on you today, unable to help himself. Why are you pushing so hard?”

Sansa slouches in her chair with a heavy, burdened sigh and a gaze out into the yard, and Margaery doesn’t need to follow her look to know she’s staring at his greenhouse before she lets her head sag back against the back of the chair, and she closes her eyes against the warmth of the sunshine. “I haven’t really been all that lucky in love,” she says finally, and Margaery laughs, not unkindly.

“Oh honey, you and Sandor have so much in common. Look, you leave him to me, too, okay? Let’s um, hmm,” she thinks, swirling the white wine around in her glass before a smile curls up on her mouth like an autumn leaf, and Margaery downs the last of her wine in one thirsty swallow before laughing, because this will be _easy,_ and so, so fun to watch. “You, Genna and me, let’s go to Hops and Vines tomorrow. That girl loves destroying that giant Jenga game, she’ll have a blast, and we’ll have some more time to talk about this stuff. Shae at Sunshine Daycare is hiring and maybe I can get her to meet us, okay?”

“Okay,” Sansa says with a fortified sigh, sitting back heavily in her chair. “What are you going to do,” she asks with narrowed eyes, “get him to bring me another rose?”

“Nah,” Margaery says, and Sansa laughs at the admittance of her busybody ways, and she waves her off again. “You two are way past roses, sweetie. It’s game time,” she says, and they fill up the rest of Genna’s hour-long cartoon show by discussing all the things about Sandor that she loves, and Margaery gets a glimpse of the man she always knew was in there, behind the _Fuck yous_ and the scars, the sneers and the sorrow. Sansa tells her about midnight conversations and the way he looks at her, and Margaery smiles dreamily to hear of the kisses, the hot fevered kisses in the dark and in the first light of dawn, to hear of how good he smells to Sansa and how the sight of him walking her way very nearly brings her to her knees.

She’s full of this love and adoration, these mental images of pining men and swooning women, is nearly as dazed as Sansa is when she finally takes her leave, and so she runs smack into Sandor’s chest when she walks out the front door.

“I knew when I saw that stupid Jeep it was you,” he says with a grunt, and he steps in her way when she tries walking around him. “What’re you doing here, huh? Stirring up trouble?” She arches a brow at him and puts her fists on her hips, her car keys a jingle in her hand.

“I’m not the one who has been drinking and shooting guns this afternoon, sugar butt,” she says with A Look, and then she softens and gives him a hug, one he awkwardly returns with a pat on her head. “You’re a good guy, Sandor. I’m glad we’re friends,” she says, leaving him so stunned he’s speechless, so confused by the admission that he doesn’t think to ferret out the reason for her visit, and she hopes he won’t think twice about tomorrow.

 

** Margie:  ** Take Sandor to H&V tomorrow, tell him to drown his sorrows and don't take no for an answer.

**Bronn:** Why

** Margie: **  Listen to your Margie.

** Bronn:  ** K

** Margie: **  Are you drinking and plinking by yourself??

** Bronn: **  no

** Bronn: **  just dicking

** Bronn: **  dinking

** Bronn: **  DRINKING

** Margie:  ** Dammit Bronn, I don't care how hungover you are tomorrow, you're taking him to H&V or I'm going to kill you, you hear?

** Bronn: **  Yes deer

** Bronn: **  deer

** Bronn: **  dear

** Bronn: **  love you baby

** Margie: **  love you always


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [PICSET BABY](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103726319542/kiss-the-girl-by-jillypups-chapter-15-picset-part)
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> [Oh boy!](http://bex-morealli.tumblr.com/post/103726769417/kiss-the-girl-by-jillypups-chapter-15-picset-part)

For the first time in months Sandor has a dream about Genna. It was back in Tulsa when they first met, when she was as inconsolable as he was bewildered, when they sat together with the CPS worker in her cramped and cluttered office. There was a moment when Sandor, upon the urging of the child therapist assigned to her case, handed Genna a toy he bought her in the airport – _and that was all Margie’s doing,_ he thinks – just some rinky-dink little stuffed dog, but the moment that thing exchanged hands it was like the ice broke, and she crawled in his lap, much to his horror, and that was that. He’d been silent and terrified the entire flight to Oklahoma that she would recoil in fear at the sight of him, this overgrown man with a mangled face, but there he sat awkwardly holding her as she snuffled against his sleeve, thumb in her mouth while she held that dog to her chest. It was that moment he dreamed of last night, and it is that dream that makes him smile automatically when he hears the slap of her feet as she rounds the corner into the kitchen.

“G’morning, daddy,” she yawns, and it’s not the little dog she carries anymore but that shirt of his, trailing behind her on the ground. It’s early for her on a Saturday, not even eight o’clock, and while he has always been used to solitude this early, he’s not sorry for the company.

“Hey, sugar. You sleep okay?” He hoists her up as she tells him she slept well, sets her on the counter side of the kitchen island while he pours himself his second cup of coffee, and he thinks it’s fitting he share his first with the sun and the second with his kid, but there is a third cup left in the pot, another person in this house he thinks of, a sunrise not so long ago that he did not observe in solitude, and it was paired with strong, slender hands and the easing of his sore back. Sandor sighs.

Genna’s got more interest in helping him water plants than in watching television, and he tries not to think of Sansa’s influence on the two of them when he realizes he’s pleased. Before _she_ came here, he’d never bothered to shut off the cartoons but now the TV is turned off more than it’s on, and Sandor finds he likes it, prefers it to the inane sounds and songs of all those shows she used to demand watching. _How can you just come into my world and_ change everything… _You have_ ruined _me._ _Yeah, but you’ve made us better, little bird,_ he thinks, and then he remembers he can’t call her that anymore, and it’s with a scowl that he walks on down to the greenhouse, Genna on his shoulders as he sips his coffee, and to her credit she suppresses the urge to kick the mug out of his hands, though she cheerfully discusses it the entire walk down.

“What’s this one,” she asks him over and over again, pointing to every plant as he waters them, and the time drifts by as he squats down and shows her again how he plants the seeds, because every time she asks she forgets, and he lets her poke her little finger in the moist soil he has in the smallest pots he owns, and the morning wastes away until they drop in all the seeds he has laid out for the late summer plants they intend to sell, until their stomachs rumble and he realizes they’ve yet to eat breakfast.

She’s still sleeping, or whatever it is she does in that room of hers by the time he’s laying strips of bacon in the skillet, and because Genna is holed up in her room he has the opportunity to choose his own entertainment, and so he’s listening to Johnny Cash when he hears the shower crank on, and he has to brace his hands on the counter as his eyes close. He was so close to yanking that towel away from her body, lifting her up and having her because it is _torture_ here in his own house, torture to catch her looking at him, to see the back of her legs as she disappears into her room just before he comes around the corner. He’s grateful for the distraction of his cell phone chiming to life, and he hums along to Highwayman as he reads Bronn’s text.

 

**Bronn:** Hops & Vines come drown your sorrow

****Sandor:**  **It won’t help, nothing will

**Bronn:** Help me then, I need hair of the dog

****Sandor:** ** Drunk idiot

**Bronn:** Hungover idiot. I was drunk idiot last night

**Bronn:** Come on, man, Margie’s bringing Sansa over to watch chick flicks. Bring Genna if you want

**Bronn:** Don’t do this to me

**Bronn:** Hello

**Bronn:** Earth to asshole

**Sandor:** 3pm then

**Bronn:** I’ll come get you in an hour

**Sandor:** Not even noon yet

**Bronn:** I need a lot of hair okay??

 

 

The smell of bacon is still in the air when she finally has the courage to venture out of her room, though he and Genna are long gone, having swept out of here with a ragged sounding Bronn, and she can still feel the echo of Sandor’s voice, the rough crack and timbre of it, can still hear the explosion of activity at the front door as Genna decided to change her shoes last minute, as Sandor let loose a few expletives and Bronn complained of a headache. But the house is still and silent now, a yawning space of clean lines, red floors and bright, overcast light that bounces down from the clouds that have come overhead. As she tucks her white button down into her jeans while looking out in the backyard, the iron sky above reminds her of his eyes, and she turns with a sigh into the kitchen for a yogurt where she stops in her tracks. There’s a plate of leftover bacon on the counter, three strips cooked the precise way she always makes them, crisped with the curl of fat still tender and chewy on the ends. It brings tears to her eyes, and the threat of ruining her mascara is the only thing that keeps them from spilling over, not that she hasn’t already cried enough the past few days. _I used to be the one leaving him food_.

_Out with Bronn. Took Genna, it’s your day off. Made too much food, help yourself. – S_

She lifts the note to her mouth, lets the flat of the paper brush her lips, as if kissing the hand that smoothed over the page as it held the pen, and for the thousandth time since yesterday’s talk with Margie, she wonders what the woman is up to, if she can really help the two of them fix their wrongs, if she’ll convince Sandor to give her another shot. The bacon is delicious and she eats it with an apple, kicking her legs to and fro as she sits on the counter, hunched over like a surly teenager because there’s no one here to see her, no one here to make a comment, and because these days she doesn’t much care one way or another.

Sansa takes her time getting ready, knowing Margie won’t come until two, and when she’s in her boots and has her hair dried, she finds herself once again drawn to the confines of his bedroom. She stares at the photograph, runs her fingers along the edge of his dresser, hugs herself as she stares at his huge, neatly made bed, biting back the hundred sighs she has for him. Before she can help herself she’s crawling on top of the covers, burying her face in his pillow as she stretches out on her stomach. It smells of him, that spicy, masculine smell of his shampoo and the crisp brightness of his Irish Spring, and she drags the pillow to her chest to breathe him in.  She’s unsure of how long she lies there, but she’s in and out of a fitful, haunted sleep when there is a knock on the door.

“Jesus, what’s the matter with me,” she gasps as she gets to her hands and knees, sweeping a hand across his pillow to brush out the indentation of her face, and she smoothes out his comforter before tending to her rumple of a shirt and the tousle of her hair as she hurries down the hall to the door.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Margie smiles with her bright eyes, giving her a firm, warm hug that makes Sansa smile. She’s been on the receiving end of those fleeting, halfhearted hugs that feel more like ill-concealed repulsion, and she’s happy to see Margie gives the real deal. “Let’s go have girl talk, but first, I need to make a pit stop,” she says, heading down the hall towards Genna’s room.

“She’s not here, Sandor took her somewhere with Bronn,” Sansa calls out, checking her makeup in the bathroom mirror after her impromptu nap. _I can almost smell him, still,_ she thinks, and there’s a brief, desperate moment when she lifts the shirt off her chest to smell the fabric. Eyes closed, it’s his fresh soap in her nostrils bringing a smile to her mouth, a deep pain to her heart.

“Honey, if it’s not clean, just change it,” Margie says with amusement, and when Sansa gasps and opens her eyes, dropping the shirt and hastily smoothing it back in place, she sees Margie’s reflection laughing behind her in the doorway. “Come on, let’s go grab a drink. I’m sure you could use one, and I never turn down an excuse to catch a nice wine buzz on a Saturday afternoon.”

She lets her hand ride the wind on the short drive from Sandor’s to Hops and Vines, wonders if the darkening clouds above will bring rain even though everyone in town says the rains don’t come until the monsoon season, and lets the rollicking honky tonk music Margie blares from her Jeep speakers roll over her. It’s about love, of course, and she closes her eyes against the lyrics, tries to focus on the wind under her palm, tries to forget about him and fails at all of it.

 

He’s already a couple of glasses in, watching Genna play with the cat as it tries its damnedest to avoid her, and while there is still infinite sorrow falling like summer snow all around him, he has to admit he feels looser about it, and the wine moves like a warm river in his veins trying to combat the chill of rejection, at the very least numbs the spiked points of pain that have him helplessly speared. Bronn is weakly nursing the sparkling wine, muttering that he should have brought a flask instead, and Sandor rolls his eyes.

“Then why did you want to come here? We could drink whiskey at my house for God’s sake,” but Bronn just rolls his eyes, staring down the hill towards the road, lost in muzzy, hungover thoughts.

“I thought wine might taste good,” he shrugs and then he clears his throat. “Genna, let’s go see the chickens. That damn cat’s had about enough of playing tag, but a chicken can play all day long.” He’d rather watch Genna harass chickens than Jaime Lannister kissing on Brienne, or Renly and Loras throwing beanbags at each other, so Sandor joins them, and even though it’s overcast they’re all still in sunglasses because it is that brilliant a white light, like they’re all living inside a light bulb that’s been left on, and glows from the sky as much as the blonde grasses that crunch underfoot as they make their way to the fenced in chicken yard. His niece, his kid, his daughter, his _kin_ makes him snort with laughter as she chases the chicken clear out of the coop, and then they’re both scuttling _back_ up the hill towards the pond, and Sandor drains his wine before sprinting up after her, cautious of her recklessness near the deep, manmade water feature.

And then he sees her.

 

“Hey,” Jaime says, nudging Brienne with his nose against her ear, and he’s got Clegane in his sights, points with his left hand in his direction. She tilts into the kiss he presses to her cheek but looks in the direction he aims his finger, and gives a tiny shrug.

“So what, he’s here often enough,” she murmurs, about as into gossip as a deaf, blind and mute nun,but he more than makes up for it. Clegane is still as a statue, holding onto his niece’s overall strap as she tries in shrieking, giggling vain to pull free from his iron vise, but Sandor isn’t looking at her, he’s looking clear across the patio.

“Yeah, but Sansa’s here now too,” he says, tilting his head towards her, where she and Margie can just be seen through the open door, ordering themselves glasses of wine.

“Aaaand, once again, she’s been here before as well,” Brienne says, and then she twists her long, regal body away from him, as straight backed and poised as she is in the saddle. Brienne smirks at him with narrowed eyes. “You are up to no good, Jaime Lannister.”

“I’m not the one who disappeared with his nanny for forty five minutes behind the bar the other day. If I’m not mistaken, things are about to get real romantic here. Not,” he adds with a grin her way, slinging his right arm across her shoulders, bringing her down and back to him, “as romantic as _we_ are, of course,” and Brienne laughs, a wild thing that is such a contrast to her reserved manner. It’s either his effect or the wine’s, and Jaime’s hoping it’s the former.

“The first time you kissed me was after a shoving match while mucking out stalls. We were covered in horseshit, Jaime,” she says with a shake of her head, and he grabs her chin with a finger and thumb, kissing the smirk right off her mouth.

“I know. That’s why I said it was romantic.”

 

Margie and Sansa go out the back towards the house where the huge barrels of wine are kept, and Sandor is left staring, having not been seen though he’s the largest person here.

“You told me they were going to watch movies at your place,” he snarls once Bronn meanders up towards him from the chicken coop, and his friend shrugs, draining his sparkling wine, clearly over his initial hesitancy.

“I lied,” he says, breezing past Sandor on the way for a refill, and Sandor has no choice but to follow him, because if ever he needed a drink it’s now, with _her_ here, here where he didn’t think he needed defenses up, barriers put in place or at the very least the self-preparation it takes him to be around her without losing his mind.

“I don’t know what the fuck you two are trying to do here,” he says at the bar as Bronn walks away, presumably to take a piss outside, “but it’s not going to work. You can’t _force_ her to be with me, asshole.”

“Trust me, buddy, no one could force _anyone_ to be with you,” he says, grinning over his shoulder, and Sandor leans over the bar on his elbows, staring at the wood grains with a shake of his head.

“It’s true, though,” Ros says with a simpering smile, and she laughs when he shoves off the bar and tells her to shut up, and Genna’s back to harassing the cat curled up in the window seat when he sits heavily on the sofa that's green like the dark peel of a lime, knees cocked out as he stares sightlessly outside. It’s a small little world of couples today,  and even old Barristan is letting Olenna come a little more closely around him, a buzzard circling her prey, and he’d chuckle but his heart’s just not in it. _She walked right fucking by me_ , he thinks, staring at the red wine in his stemless glass, and he swirls it, wishing he could make himself small and drown in the thick darkness of it.

“You look like you need someone to talk to,” Margie says, her blonde hair a sudden tickle against his scars as she leans over the back of the sofa to murmur in his ear, and he jumps only a little before fastening a dark glare on her.

“Jesus, you’re like a bad penny,” he snaps, and then he sighs. _You’re a good guy, Sandor, I’m glad we’re friends,_ and sometimes he wonders why though now he half wishes they weren’t. “What do you want, huh, Marge? Is this some game to you? Are you really that fucking bored?”

She slinks around the side of the sofa and curls up in the corner of it, feet up and knees to her chest the way Sansa sits, and he mutters nonsense to himself as he drinks his wine.

“I want you to be happy, honey,” she says sincerely, head tipped to the side. “You know, I talked to Sansa yesterday,” she says lightly, gazing with interest into her chardonnay. “Genna-benna, I think Loras wants to play cornhole with you,” she says to her as his kid tries lugging the cat off of the window seat, and Genna drops the old cat like a brick so she can bound outside, and there is a shriek of _LORAS_ and a deeper return of _GENNA-BEAN_ that for some reason hurts his heart because it is so sweet, and she is so _loved_ and he is so _proud_ of that.

“No shit, woman, I saw you leave my house. You literally ran into me.” Sansa had disappeared again when he got home, and he can only imagine the dirty laundry she aired about kings of the castle and sleeping with the help. “You here to tell me to move on, try and fuck a drunk girl tonight?”

“The only drunk girl I want you to take to bed is Sansa, and I know she feels the same way,” and Sandor stares at her, at that curling smile of hers that makes her look like she’s still in high school, and he sighs.

“Please don’t fuck with me, Margie, I’m hanging on by a thread here,” he says, and she laughs with a sympathetic shake of her head.

“Oh, you two are such clueless fools. Beautiful, clueless fools. That’s why I’m _here_ , Sandor,  I’m trying to cut you free,” and as if on cue Sansa emerges from the barrel room, walking with Bronn, and he’s gesturing wildly, his empty wine glass palmed in one hand, and when it drops to the ground Sansa laughs. The sight of her kills him.

“What are you talking about,” he says, and she looks behind her through the bay window to where Sandor is staring, and then she leans forward to put her hand on his knee, and finally it snares his attention and he looks to her.

“Go out there, Sandor. Fire Sansa. Tell her you love her. Kiss the girl, for God’s sake. It’s all she wants, all she’s wanted for a long time.” There is buzzing in his ears like the rush of a waterfall.

“Fire her,” he echoes, eyes lifting off of Margie to find Sansa, his heart a leap in his chest as she stands outside, hair drifting in the lazy breezes, one hand tucked in her back pocket, the other wrapped around her wine glass. _Fire her and make her yours,_ says a dark, guttural beast that lives inside him. “But Genna, who else can—”

“Loras!” Margie says happily, flinging her hands in the air as if she’s the only guest at a surprise party. “I texted him last night, he’d love to be your manny, said he was a little ticked off you brought in some export. Not that he still feels that way,” she says hastily when he turns his head to look at her. “And I already packed clothes for Genna to sleep over at my house, and before you get mad at me for sticking my nose in it,” she starts, but he drains his wine and stands swiftly, bending down to kiss her on the forehead.

“Thanks, Margie,” he says, and then Sandor is twisting the handle and pushing open the door out back, gravel shifting and gritting beneath his feet, reminding him of how this is new ground, new and finally known, and _now_ she sees him, standing between Bronn and the reed-choked fish pond. It’s not so windy, not so dry from the roll of clouds above them, but she is no less brilliant for the lack of sun overhead. Bronn grins and rubs the back of his neck, plucks from Sansa’s hand her empty wine glass before he walks by Sandor.

“Funnest game of chess I’ve ever played,” he says under his breath, and Sandor actually grins. They stand and stare at each other, and even outside with the sweep of hills all around them and an endless sky of gray and white there is a closeness between them, a heat that only seems to exist when they’re looking at each other, and he watches and listens to her sigh when he takes a step towards her. His heart breaks into a thousand little birds that fly out his body when he takes a second step towards him and she breathes out his name, a whisper he can hear as easily as if she moans it into his ear, and he’s determined to make that a reality.

 

“You might want to look away,” Renly murmurs, and Willas sighs, slouching uncharacteristically in his chair as he holds his head in his hand. “Sorry buddy,” he says, patting his brother in law on the back with sympathy, “but come on, those two are made for each other. And Loras, I’d take Genna to the swing or something,” he starts but when he turns to where they were previously playing cornhole there is no one there.

“I’m already on it,” Loras calls out and he sees them walking down the hill hand in hand, Loras’s mop of hair giving Genna’s a run for its money. Renly grins and looks back because _he_ isn’t all bent out of shape over Sansa, and can watch these two fall into each other all he wants.

 

She feels herself being put back together with every step he makes towards her, a stitch here and a stitch there, with the crunch of gravel beneath his feet and the whistle of wind when it picks up, the way he takes the aviators that hang from his collar and tucks them in the pocket of his plaid shirt so they’re not in the way. Sansa buzzes from the wine and from how close he is now, how he lets his eyes roam over her, and she takes the advice his wandering gaze offers and returns the favor, taking in the burning gaze and the smile half hidden in the thickness of his beard, and her fingers curl into her palms because she wants to feel the scruff of it in her hands as she holds him to her, and then he’s a step away from her, and she watches as his hands reach out, as two of his fingers dip into her jeans pockets and hold her in place.

He’s waiting for her when she lifts her gaze to his, head bowed as he regards her, and he is equal parts amusement and sizzle, hot and dark and dangerous, just how she wants him, just how she loves him, and it makes her close that last bit of distance with a single step forward, and his hands are the only thing separating their hips from touching. Sansa shakes her hair back and out of her face as she looks up at him.

“You’re fired,” he says finally, tugging her by the pockets before lifting his hands to cup her face, one thumb dragging across her lower lip while the other brushes her cheekbone, and she lets loose a ridiculous, wobbly laughter that fades into a gasp when he lowers his head and whispers “and you’re mine,” before he kisses her, and it’s red wine and white, it’s him and it’s her, and it’s the giddy rush of a close call, how they almost messed it up, and for the first time in over a week the tears that burn in the corners of her eyes are happy ones, and when he breaks the kiss only to leave another she murmurs _Yes, I am._

 

“Well done, Margie,” Bronn says, patting her on the ass as he drinks the last of his wine as they stand behind the bay window, gazing out at Sandor holding onto Sansa so tight you’d think she was a wisp of furtive smoke instead of flesh and blood. “I wasn’t sure you’d pull it off,” he says, setting his glass down on the coffee table before pulling her hips in to his.

“They just had to stand face to face, they just had to know the truth,” she says dreamily, and he chuckles, never thinking he’d be standing in a room full of barrels of wine telling a woman his friend can’t get over her, like they’re still in high school or on some MTV show. Margie’s gazing out in smug bliss and with that foxy grin of hers, and she grabs his arm with a small _Ohh_ when Sandor takes Sansa by the waist and lifts her up into his arms, and there is a wrap of denim and cowboy boots around his torso and a wrap of white long sleeves around his neck, a swirl of auburn that the wind blows over his shoulder. Even Bronn can admit it’s beautiful, but he laughs when Sandor starts walking them towards the fields behind Hops and Vines.

“Where is he taking her? Just like, the hills beyond? His house is the other way,” he grins, but Margie just sighs happily, lifting the camera around her neck to snap several shots in as many seconds.

“They’ll figure it out. At least they better, I worked my ass off harder for these two idiots than I even did for Loras and Renly, and I was a novice back then. All right,” she says, lowering the camera and turning against his body to kiss his jaw, and he knows her moves well enough to anticipate them, so he turns his face just in time to steal that kiss with his mouth, to taste the wine on her tongue, to make her sigh for him instead of over her successful matchmaking skills. He manages it.

“All right what,” he says, turning to press their chests together, and she smiles against his kiss and licks his tongue with hers, the same way she did fourteen years ago when she turned his legs to jelly for the first time.

“We need to go steal the booster seat out of Sandor’s truck. I couldn’t snag it when I was over there, Sansa was all hawk eyes after I snuck into Genna’s room for her jammies,” she says as they go out to tell Loras they’ll be back, and Margie squints up at the sky. “I think it might rain,” she says, but Bronn shakes his head.

“Nah, not the season for it, not yet,” but he grins to think that if she wants it to rain, it likely will, because his Margie is just that type of woman.

 

“Come home with me,” he says to her skin, and he’s drunker off her than the wine now, her hips in his hands as she sits on the fence behind Hops and Vines, her knees spread to house him as he kisses what collarbone is exposed by her shirt,. He’s got his back curved so he can kiss whatever he can find, and she’s got his head in her hands and he’s got her ass in his, and these clothes between them are driving him crazy. “Come home with me, baby,” he says, lifting a hand to the back of her neck to pull her down for a kiss, and she hums as if she’s eating ice cream instead of slipping her tongue against his.

“I live there, silly,” she murmurs, tilting her head when he kisses down to her jaw, and she shivers when he rubs his chin against her throat, a breath hitching from that rasp of hair, something she likes that he’s already learned and is eager to perform. “Of course I’m coming home with you.”

“Not like that,” he grunts, standing to his full height to kiss her squarely, and he almost pulls her right off the fence when he drags her against him, her thighs spreading to greet him. “Come home to my _bed_ with me. Genna’s with Margie for the night, so stay with _me_ , all night. Don’t leave this time,” he says, thinking _Don’t ever leave me again._ She gasps and sighs an _Oh_ of delicious comprehension, and she’s nodding as she kisses him, and once more he’s got her legs wrapped around him.

“There is nowhere I’d rather be,” she says, and she shows her teeth when she tugs his hair and makes him stare at the clouds above until his eyes roll back in his head as she bows down over him to suck and lick and bite him, and Sandor dives his hands down the back of her jeans, pushing under her panties to squeeze the soft flesh of her ass, and that’s got her attention.

“I don’t have a car,” Sansa gasps as she grinds against his hardened cock, and he thinks _Yeah, I could fuck her right here,_ and he wants to say _The one time you’re not in a sundress, little bird, the_ one _time._

“I don’t either,” he says, laughing to realize they’ve been thrown together in a more thorough way than he realized. “Fucking Margie, man. If a few glasses of wine won’t do it, a mile long walk will, clever old girl.”

Sansa laughs, and he kisses her throat, tipping her body back to a dangerous angle, but he’s got her legs around him and the squeeze of her thighs, the fence beneath her and a hand at the middle of her arched back, and he considers ripping her shirt off here and now when she says “I think it’s going to rain,” but Sandor shakes his head, looking up at the sky.

“It’s not the season for it,” he says, and her laughter rings in his ears when there is a clap of thunder, and five minutes later they’re sitting ducks in the middle of a downpour.

 

“You should have left them a quad, at least. How are they going to get laid if they’re holed up at Hops and Vines in a rainstorm?” Bronn says, leaning his shoulder against the frame of the front door, gazing out into the downpour. Margie grins at him before checking in on Genna’s bath, and then she slips up behind him, winding her arms around him.

“A sunset walk in the rain? What could _be_ more romantic. Kissing in the rain, laughing, it’s wonderful.” Bronn snorts, and she pinches him.

“Getting sopping wet in boots and jeans is not romantic at all,” he says, and she is forced to remind him of a rainy afternoon they shared the summer before her sophomore year, and then he laughs. “Well it’s romantic when _we_ do it,” he says, and they both stand for a few minutes, listening to the rumbles of off season thunder and to the sound of Genna in the tub, imagination and little girl dialogue running wild.

“I want one, Bronny,” she whispers, and he lifts his arm to pull her into him.

“I know you do, Margie. I know you do.”

 

“How is it so cold,” she chatters, and he’s got his arm around her as they plod through the fields, having run most of the way before finally slowing to a winded albeit brisk walk. They are soaking wet, and the fun of the race fell away once their clothing got so stuck to their skins they could hardly lift their legs to run anymore. “I mean, it’s June,” she says, so incredulous it makes him laugh.

“We’re at over 4500 feet over sea level, that’s how. We’re almost there, I promise. Look, there’s our hill,” he points, and when he looks down at her in the fading light he sees her smiling up at him, her hair plastered to her temples and her skin shining alabaster beneath the dying light of a summer storm

“Our hill, huh?” she asks, and he snorts a laugh with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, little bird. Our hill,” and they don’t speak anymore until they make it to the backyard, but she is so shivery, her teeth chattering so violently that he takes a short detour. “Come here, you’re freezing,” he says, and with the slide of the latch he wrenches open the door to the greenhouse and ushers her inside before slamming the door against the sudden gale of wind that comes in a rush down the slope.

“It’s so _warm_ in here,” she says with a happy sigh, her voice amorphous in the dark of the little glass house, and she sounds far away thanks to the drum and slash of the thunderstorm beating on the panes all around them, a tiny voice inside a screaming hurricane.

 “Fuck, what a storm,” he says, flicking on the light before tugging apart the mother of pearl snaps of his shirt and shrugging with difficulty out of it, peeling the sleeves off his arms so at least he’s only in a drenched undershirt. He grunts when it’s finally off of him, and he tosses it to the brick and gravel at his feet with a wet slap. Thus relieved he turns he to see her wringing out her hair, a long, thick ginger rope twisted in both of her hands, and her back is facing him as she looks up at the pounding of rain on the glass roof above them. She is a wet, white shirt that shows him everything, the straps and band of a pale bra, she is the long curve of neck and the irresistible twist of hair, the jeans that are dragged down her hips from the weight of the rain. Before he can help himself Sandor steps to her and takes it from her hand, winding the wet auburn around his fist until her head tips back against his chest.

“Oh my God,” she groans, eyes sliding closed, and he inclines his head to watch her expression change, to see the need for him slide into place, right where he wants it. “Sandor,” she sighs as he lowers his head over her shoulder, making her face him with a squeeze and twist of her hair in his hand, and she arches her back when he kisses her, mouth open and waiting, her hot little tongue a slip of love against his, but when he slides his hand across her stomach her soaked through shirt is a freezing cold film of fabric, so much so it startles him. She sighs when he lets her hair go, and that makes him smile. _Soon enough, my girl._

“Come here, honey, no wonder you’re shivering,” he murmurs, and she turns in his arms, and despite the almost breath-stealing humidity and warmth in here she really is still shaking, though he takes his time with the buttons of her blouse. He watches the goose bumps crop up along the path his hands make down her chest and stomach as he lets his fingers brush her skin between each undoing, and she’s no longer as pale as she used to be but he still marvels at the contrast between his skin and hers when the shirt is finally completely undone. His sun-beaten hands push the shirt down the cream of her arms and he lets it fall to the ground, is ready to kiss her but then she’s dragging up the sodden hem of his undershirt, and the hot look in her eyes, eyes so blue they should never be able to burn like they do, tell him she will brook no argument from him. Sandor obeys her because there is no room left in this world for discussion, so he lifts his arms, and she has to get onto her tip toes to pull it free from his wrists.

The light here is the low yellow he’s always loved, soft and warm, as comforting as the heat and humidity and the plants that stand tall in its glow, but now it’s painting this space of his like a work of art, some captured moment in time to hang on a museum wall, all because she’s here again. Sansa places her hands on his chest, lets them slick away the rain before they drift down to his jeans, and she looks up at him, giving his belt and his jeans a tug, as if daring him to look down instead of in her eyes, but it’s a dare he’d win.

“Are we home now, Sandor?” Her eyes are ringed in black from the rain ruining her makeup, and she looks equal parts angel and devil, succubus and saint, and he brushes the wet hair from her neck to fist it again.

“Yeah, baby, we’re home now.”

 

She’s warming up now despite the scruff of his beard waking up a riot of gooseflesh wherever he kisses her, pressed as she is against his work table. He is slow moving tonight, nothing like the fever with which he’s touched her before, and her head drops back, arms outstretched and hands gripping the edge of the table as his thumbs slide up her ribs to the creases below her breasts, bare now after he took her bra off, and she wonders if it landed in fertile soil wherever he threw it, if it will grow flowers made out of love and lust, swollen blossoms that sigh perfume if you so much as nudge them. He sinks to his knees, always on his knees for her, as he takes first one nipple and then the other into his mouth, tongue such a lazy brush of wet heat, such an agonizing drag that she’s almost dancing, foot to foot, as he unbuttons her jeans and pulls down the zipper, and now her hips and belly are free from the clammy cold denim.

“No, no,” she says when he’s pulled her legs free from her jeans and her panties, when he presses his beard and his mouth between her legs, and her hands leave the table to touch his hair, to sink fingers into the thick of it. “You, right now. Please, please don’t make me wait anymore,” and she hears the whine in her voice, the pull of _begging,_ but she doesn’t care. She almost lost him; she will beg him for anything, so long as it means she gets what she wants, so long as she gets Sandor.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, getting to his feet, and again her hands drop to his jeans where they were when he dove into _her,_ kicking off his boots before pulling hers off for her, so now she works his buckle, thumbs apart the button and unzips him. His jeans are looser than hers so they fall in a heavy pool around his feet and he steps out of them, and now they are naked, and now he pulls her to him with two hands on her waist. His skin is hot, still wet with rain or maybe sweat at this point, because she watches a bead of water shake itself loose from his collarbone and she leans in to lick it before she loses sight of it in his chest hair, and he groans, deep in his chest. “ _Sansa,”_ he says, hand back to the wet tangle of her hair.

“You,” she says in a rush, remembering his command, “I want you inside me, I don’t want anything else, _please,_ please, Sandor,” she says, and that is apparently enough. He lifts her by the hips and sets her on the table behind her, and she has the delight of wrapping her legs around him without a lick of clothing between them. There is a clap of thunder and she jumps, making him smile before he lifts the hair from her neck, pushes with the other hand her head to the side so he can bite into her shoulder, a deep press of his teeth, and she thinks of Stranger, thinks of animals pinning each other down, He drops her hair and lowers a hand between her thighs, and if the thunder made her jump than Sandor makes her quake, two fingers inside her with an upward curl as if he means to pull her towards him from the inside.

“I _said,_ ” she starts, but he shuts her up with a kiss, the skin he bit throbbing from the sudden release of his teeth.

“I know what you said,” and he grits his teeth and presses his forehead to hers, says they can’t because he hasn’t bought a condom in over a year, and that’s when she laughs.

“The pill, Sandor,” she says, and then he laughs too, a rush of relief she can feel when he coasts a hand down her arm. “So give me what I want.”

“You’ll get me then, but I’ll be damned if I don’t take my time.”

And he does. Sweat beads from her brow when he works her over, sweat slides between her breasts where he kisses it away, laps it up like a cat does cream, and her legs are too slippery to gain much purchase around his hips, and while she wants to drag him closer, bring the thrust of erection so close he’ll stop toying and will just _fuck_ her, her feet can’t cling to him, not with this humidity, and so she lets her thighs hang off the edge of the table as he rubs her first orgasm out of her, her hips moving like it’s his cock inside her and not just his fingers, but when she breaks down and cries his name using _please_ as punctuation finally he pulls his hand from her, kissing her with both hands pressed to her back, his chest a breadth of muscle against her as he holds her tight to him.

“Now?” she asks, and then he nods, kissing her, and he pulls her off the table as if she were a doll on a shelf that he’s taking home, one forearm beneath her sweating thigh, the other gripped around her waist, and she clings to him, a fist in his loose hair once she gets rid of that damned hair tie, and then he walks her to the shadowed back of the greenhouse, sinking to his knees, and it’s the drum of rain and the drip of sweat from his body to hers, and that’s when she hears Sandor say _I love you._

 

 _Now,_ she asked, and in a hot minute he was ready to carry her, naked like a barbarian up to the house, but then he remembered that morning, planting seeds on his knees with a layer of blankets between his joints and the earth, and it’s there he carries her now. Her legs are already around him when he finally gets to his knees and can tell her back is to the blanket, and before he can help himself he says what’s on his mind. _I love you._ She sighs out his name when he finally, finally slides himself inside her, the warmest, sweetest, tightest space he’s ever known, and it’s the rain above them and the earth below, her legs a squeeze around him when he props himself up to look down on her. It’s a heartbeat but it lasts forever, looking at her as she bathes in what he just said, and though he’s hard as a rock he stays still, pushed to the hilt inside her, but he needs her to understand what he just said.

“You love me,” she breathes, eyes closed with a smile, and he is lost in the bliss of her expression until she reaches up and digs her nails into his back, and he hisses from the sweet flare of pain. They both are too sweaty without anchors, and she uses the half-moons of her fingernails  to pull him down on top of her and she _Ohs_ when he pumps his hips forward, her nails raking through the slick of sweat on his back, and he works her over until he hears it, until she says his name, a low moan in his ear that is followed and swallowed by _I love you, I love you, I love you._

He won’t stop moving, no matter the orgasms he’s racking up, two for her once again, but it’s too slow and sweet, each time he pulls out of her, each time his back rounds so he can dip his head to suck her breasts, and it seems that with such a pace Sandor can last forever. She has arched her back and lifted her hips, has reached down below where they’re joined, has told him how devastating it is to be so in love with him because she is desperate to give him as much pleasure as he’s given her, but then he will press her belly down with a hand, her back flush to the blanket beneath them, and It’s his thumb again, rubbing its agonizing circle even as he thrusts inside her, slow like the abating storm all around them, bringing her up to throw her back down again when he pulls away. She feels like merengue between his touches, so pushed and pulled she has no idea what to do anymore except her best, and it’s why his chest is heavy on hers when she finally works him into a climax, when he says _No, wait,_  and then he says _Yes. Yes, Sansa, please,_ and she has his magic word.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104038946908/bex-morealli-jillypups-bex-morealli)   
>  [Hot damn picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104035295623/bex-morealli-jillypups-bex-morealli-kiss)
> 
> [Another sexy one!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104088866993/vanillacoconuts-jillypups-bex-morealli-well)

It’s darker in the back of the greenhouse, but there is enough of that candlewax-yellow light to see the glitter of her eyes when she looks up at him from where she lies on her back, and it makes shadows along her body, tucked up beneath her breasts and inside the dip of her navel that looks like a small lake of black. Sandor sends a hand up her belly from where it rested on her hip, and she inhales as his palm lifts so that only his fingertips remain when he skates them between her breasts and up to her throat. He has himself propped up on an elbow to better study her, and his eyes follow his fingers, taking in with his gaze what he feels with his fingers. Sansa’s skin is warm, still slick with sweat even though they have been at rest for several minutes, but then again, they’re not in a place of dry, cooling breezes, and the air is as thick with love now as it is with moisture.

The beating and hammer of the rain all around them has abated and what is left is the drizzle of a storm that has for the most part moved on, but it still adds to the sense of seclusion here, of how it is just Sansa and him and that solitary light bulb hanging in the center of the greenhouse; outside there is nothing but nighttime and a dying summer storm, and nothing of any interest to either of them. She tilts her head back to give him better access to her long neck, sighs and closes her eyes when he lightly grasps her around the throat as if he means to collar her with his own flesh and blood, and her trust in him is as arousing as the sight of her lying naked before him, but he releases her after the most ginger of squeezes, and she smiles.

“I don’t ever want to leave here,” she murmurs when her eyes open once more, and she brushes the backs of her fingers against the scars on his left cheek, making him tip his face to the touch, finding more therapy in that offer of connection than in any interaction he’s ever had. “I hope it rains forever,” and Sandor smiles down at her to hear such words, and it’s a marvel to him that she speaks this way about _him_ and _his_ company, it’s a marvel that after the long stretch of solitude that has been his life up until now, he has a woman here with him in this sanctuary of his, a woman who has cried out his name and is now looking right at him with love in her eyes.

“Unfortunately I think it’s dying down now,” he says, but he feels the exact same way as she does, so he twists his body over hers to kiss her, and she lifts her arms to welcome him in to her. Sansa hums as she slides her tongue into his mouth and against his own, and she brushes his hair away from his face, holding it back in one hand as she cups his face with the other. They have been kissing each other for what feels like hours, first with her sitting before him on the table and then with her beneath him, slippery as a sleek, silver bodied minnow as he thrust inside her, and now here where they bask in the afterglow. There haven’t been talking much because it’s already been said, how he’s in love with her and how she feels the same way, and Sandor is confident he will never forget how it sounded, Sansa saying _I love you, I love you, I love you_ in his ear as he fucked her. _Made love to her,_ he corrects, and that in itself is a wonder because he has never been in love, and has most certainly never been loved like this, in his entire life.

“This has been the most romantic night of my life,” she sighs, putting his thoughts into words, turning on her side when he kisses her collarbone before rolling onto his back. She holds her head in a hand, her hair a mess of damp auburn that cascades down over her hand into a heap on the blankets by her elbow.

“Same here, but it’s not over yet,” he says, and he laughs when she raises her eyebrows and says _Oh really,_ humming in approval with a look of exaggerated anticipation. “Yeah, really. I just got a taste of you, woman, there’s no holding me back now.” He folds an arm beneath his head for a makeshift pillow and watches as Sansa looks at him; they’ve gazed at each other plenty, side by side in her bed for those two weeks of early mornings, but he’s still not used to it, the way she traces his tattoos, drags her nails down through his chest hair until the simultaneous arousal and tickle from the touch make his spine arch, how she’ll press kisses to his chest and rest her cheek there as she lets her touch ride his skin further and further south until she hears his breath catch in his throat. Usually she stops at the waist of his pants but there is no boundary line tonight, and so Sansa’s trailing inspection of fingertip and nail drifts down across the bone of his hip and to the muscle of his thigh, and she exhales dreamily as she retraces her steps, and it makes his eyes close.

“I get to sleep in your bed tonight,” she says after a few moments of and he huffs a laugh at her choice of words, opens his eyes and turns his head to look at her.

“I think you mean _I_ get to have _you_ in my bed tonight,” he says, and she _Hmmms_ at that, as if he is not the lucky one here. “I get Sansa Stark in my bed, I get her love. I get this,” he says, pressing her hand down on his chest, palm to his skin, and unfolds his left arm resting under his head to slide his hand under the damp tangle of her hair, fisting it the way he now knows she likes. “I get this too,” he whispers, and she drops the hand that props her head up, turns to give him want he wants, a kiss from her parted mouth that could get him hard again on its own. But then she nips his lower lip until he hisses, and they’re locked in this brief power play where he squeezes his fist hard in her hair, where she does not free him even as he grunts, but when he releases her hair her bite turns to a long suck, and _now_ his cock is hard. He’s always said she has teeth, and now he finds just how much he enjoys it when she used them on him.

“Take me to your bed,” she says into his mouth, making him moan as she kisses him again, soft swollen things that are brief and simple, mere presses of her lips and light flicks of her tongue, and he’s hoping for those teeth again.

“I thought you wanted to stay here forever,” he says, and he’s starting to sweat again just from what she’s doing to him. Sandor finds her nipple with the pad of his thumb, eager to undo her the way she’s doing him. It springs to life beneath his rolling touch, soft skinned but pert and standing to attention, and her breath is shallow and rapid, and he is so in love with her and her touch, the weight of her breast in his hand when he moves to cup it, and at last that nip of teeth again.

“I did,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice, “but now I want to go to your bed. So take me home, baby,” she says, and so Sandor does.

She’s a shiver all over again when they eventually open the door to the outside, but half the problem is the wet clothes they’re in; she’s in her boots and his plaid button down shirt, and he’s in his jeans with the rest of their clothes draped over his arm, boots in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

“But your feet,” she says, and he shrugs with a grin.

“The rain will soften the ground, and I’ve walked around Sonoita without shoes plenty of times in my life,” he says. Sandor glances back before he flicks on the flashlight and turns off the greenhouse light, and Sansa tucks herself against him as she does the same. It’s a long pause, and he lets his eyes track the path they made from work table to the blankets in the back, as if he can see their ghosts like columns of smoke that twine around each other until there is no difference between them, anymore.

“Can we come back here some other time?” she asks, her voice hushed, and he thinks maybe it’s softer from the weight of what happened, the beauty and the sweetness of it, and so his voice is low when he answers her, as gentle as he can sound.

“We can come back here anytime you want, Sansa. I won’t deny you anything.” he says, because he means it.

 

He walks with purpose though he is barefoot and in the dark, even with her clinging to his elbow as they navigate their way up and around the side of the house to the front door, and even if there were neighbors around Sansa doesn’t think she’d care. He’s got her panties in a damp bundle in the back pocket of his jeans but his shirt comes down to the tops of her thighs, and she thinks it could be her favorite outfit now, just boots and Sandor’s shirt, rainwater in her hair and the taste of him still on her tongue. _I still can’t wait for a hot shower, though,_ she thinks, and is delighted when he accepts her invitation to join him. It’s a long, teasing walk back to his room after he chucks their wet clothes to the cement floor by the door. She leads him to his own bedroom, arms outstretched as she walks backwards so she can trail her fingertips along the walls, and she bites her lip when he reaches and pulls free the top snaps of his shirt she had fastened, and even when she quickens her pace he catches up to her, long arm outstretched and then another snap is undone with the lightning quick drag of his finger down between her breasts.

Sansa is soon naked save for cowboy boots, the button down shirt in his possession once more by the time her feet cross the threshold into his room.

His room. She’s here once more by way of invitation and desire, not on another sneaking, wet-eyed mission of secrecy, and while she makes a quick dash for the anticipatory warmth of his shower, she still gives appreciative glances around as she kicks off her boots, and there is a thrill and a delight to know she will sleep here _with_ him, the rich, fat slumber of slaked want and not whimpering alone in the emaciated drowsing of heartbroken sleep.

“You gonna stand there naked are you are going to come join me?” he asks before the creak of the shower and the sudden rush of water, and when she turns around she can’t see him, has to walk over to his bathroom, a place she’s never ventured even during her attempts at spying, and it makes her smile, because of all places to display personality, he chooses the one room no one will ever see. _Nobody but me,_ she thinks as she looks at the photographs not black and white like the others but in saturated, vivid color. There are photos above his towel bar of barrel cacti with such deep orange blossoms they look like they’re blushing; to the left of his mirror there is a photo of Sandor and Bronn on horseback that only Margie could have taken, and of course a photograph of the sunrise on the right side of his bathroom mirror.

“You took that one,” she says, stepping into the counter to better look at it, ignoring the cold flare of the marble against her belly though it makes her shudder. “I know exactly where you were standing when you took it,” she says, because she stood in that spot by his side one morning, and then she tears her eyes off of it when she feels him stand behind her, and their eyes meet in the mirror.

“I did,” he says, and she smiles when he pulls up a riot of goosebumps by dragging a finger down her spine. “Come on, little bird. Let’s warm you back up.”

The hot water is a relief after the cold walk around the side of the house, the night air having been chilled and cleaned from the impromptu storm, and soon she’s as rubbed clean as the sky  and the earth, enveloped in the scent of him when he draws all over her body with a soaped up washcloth, when she takes it from him and gets to slide her lathered arms up his sides to bring the washcloth up his back, watching with mounting heat as his eyes slide closed, and there it is, the vulnerability she can see in the tip of his head and that faint crease between his brows, as if she’s speaking in a language he is trying desperately to understand. _He has shown me so many sides already,_ she thinks, hoping she’s been as generous – _no matter how grumpy he was at the start –_ and so she rises up on her toes to kiss him, and he grunts in surprise before reaching behind him to grab away the cloth and fling it down before he wraps his arms around her, and they kiss until she’s breathless standing with him amidst all that steam.

They are soon afterwards in the kitchen eating cheddar cheese and crackers across the island from each other, wrapped up in towels, having been seconds from tumbling to the bed when his stomach growled so loudly she collapsed to her knees on the hand woven rug in his room, laughing so hard he joined in. But after drinking wine during the day and running home in the rain, after making love in the overwhelming warmth of the greenhouse, Sansa finds she too is famished. They’re finishing up the late dinner with cold cubed chicken and red grapes when Sandor licks his fingers and wipes his hand on the towel around his hips, and Sansa drops her grape to the cutting board when he walks over to her.

“There was a time not so long ago when I came across you like this,” he says in his sweetly rough voice, deep and grating, the dark threat of it a bloom of heat between her legs. She grips the counter on either side of her lean against it when he’s flush to her, untamable even in soft white terry cloth, loose hair long against his shoulders, tattoos black on his tanned skin. What little lights they’ve turned on are all in the kitchen behind him, and he is a looming shadow of muscle and man before her. She’s seen him step up to people like this to intimidate, like that rotten man at Hops and Vines, but if only he knew, _If only he knew how it’s made me feel each time, ever since the very first time he tried it._

“Yeah?” she asks, sounding cockier than she feels, weak as she is when he looks at her like this, and then she whispers _Sandor_ when he reenacts their tension-fraught moment in the bathroom, his fingers dipping down between her breasts as he tugs on the towel.

“Yeah,” he says. It loosens, but not by much, and so Sandor tugs again and again, the movement an echo of what it is like when he is between her thighs, thrusting into her and making her body rock from the power of him, and finally the tail of the towel is yanked free and it drops to the floor. He sucks in a breath and then sighs as he reaches for her hips. “That’s what I wanted then, and it’s what I want now,” and his eyes drop, gaze drinking her in as if they did not spend the last couple of hours naked in front of each other. It thrills her, the way he looks at her, the way he loves her, and _Oh my God, he_ loves _me_ she thinks when he hoists her up as he so clearly loves to do, when she wraps her legs around him and presses herself, naked as she is, to his body, and he groans.

“If it’s what you want then you’d better take it,” she whispers, and he says _Fucking Christ, Sansa_ before kissing her as he walks them back to his room, before tossing her onto his bed and following her, his own towel a forgotten thing on the floor as he crawls on his hands and knees towards her, making her think of predators like mountain lions, great big stalking creatures though she is far from scared at the sight of him. Sansa is as hungry as he is with the way he takes her with two hands beneath the bends of her knees, the way he drags her away from his pillows down to where he is, and she whimpers as she’s yanked away, fists the sheets on either side of her, and the sound makes him grin, and _that_ makes her legs shake.

“Come here,” he says, pushes her knees apart when he makes his way to her and settles himself between her spread thighs, and when she reaches down to help guide him inside her he bats her hand away before pinning her wrist down to the mattress, and she’s already moaning from the capture before he even pushes himself inside her, and already the pace and the mood and intensity is far different here than it was in the sweet, muzzy confines of the greenhouse. That was Sandor’s soft spot, his secret tucked away from the rest of the world, but this is his _bed_ , this is the lair of a man, and she can feel the difference in his kisses and the way he refuses to let her wrist go, how his hips buck into hers, and it’s not long before she’s arching into him, before this new roughness has her wanting more, wanting to be full, full, full of him. It’s the wine room all over again, that grasping, that reaching for another kind of pleasure that wraps itself up in sweet pain; it’s turning the page of a book to find a new chapter, and Sansa wants to lick her finger to catch that page, to flick it out of her way and read _more_ of him, of them, of this. All of this right now.

“Harder,” she pants in a voice she’s never heard out of herself, saying a word and making a command that she has never uttered before. “Harder, Sandor.” Her free hand clings to his shoulder where she kisses him as well, nips him with her teeth to get that rise out of him, but at her words his grunt is more of a growl and his hips suddenly slow, the rhythm dropping to an agonizing pace that is almost heartbreaking after the previous drive he had, the way she was full constantly of him, and now this slow motion has her more empty than filled up, and she lifts her hips, squirms beneath him to try and get him worked up again, to make him _move_ already.

“What do you say?” he whispers in her ear, his beard a rough scrub against her earlobe and her throat, and her eyes slide shut, breath trapped in her lungs because it’s the kiss in the kitchen all over again, except she is already in his clutches, and this is being toyed with, and it turns her on so acutely it almost hurts.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, and now he stops altogether, and she cries out his name, tugs on his hair until he reaches for _that_ hand, slapping it to the pillow above her head and now Sandor has both of her wrists in one large, tight handhold. There’s a deep throb that’s about to roll down from somewhere deep and dark in her, even though he is still as stone and just as hard inside her, and she tries to argue but he kisses her mouth, shutting her up.

“What do you _say_ , little bird? What’s the magic word, hmm?” he asks against her lips, and he has her pinned with his hand and his body; their arms stretch above Sansa’s head, bringing his chest flush to hers, a heavy weight she relishes despite the breathless way she’s trapped, and then she sobs in frustration when his free hand loosely rests against her throat as if she’s a captured animal.

“Please,” she begs him, her thighs lifting up so she can trap _him_ in any kind of way, and he _almost_ moves inside her again when she locks her ankles at the base of his spine. “Please, please, please,” she says, “harder, _please,_ ” and his hand leaves her throat to prop himself up on the mattress, and if she thought obeying his demand would free her hands she was wrong, but it doesn’t matter because she _loves_ it. He has her in absolute terms, in all manners of definition of that word, and Sandor has only to thrust his hips against hers a handful of times as hard as she wanted, as hard as she begged, and then she’s coming, back arching to pull away from him, pressing down to his bed to push her hips up to his.

Eventually she’s freed from his grasp and she pays him back for it with two rakes of her nails down his back, earning a _Holy fuck, Sansa_ out of him, and he pushes up off of her body, his hands pressed to the mattress on either side of her as he pumps so hard into her she has to brace her hands against the headboard to keep herself from hitting it. Over and over, relentless and tormenting, getting her just below that pain to make her thoughts swim, the thick and the length of him working her over double time, and she’s already sore, _almost,_ but then he just keeps thrusting.

“Yes! Yes, oh _God_ , yes,” she says in that foreign voice again because there’s the throb and pulse again, the clench and squeeze that seems to come from nowhere, and then he’s dropping back down to his elbows, her name on his tongue, and he sounds like he’s doing the begging now, and she’s so lost from her orgasm, from him and from this new, strange way to show love, but then it hits her, and she wraps her arms around him, tightens her legs around him. “I love you,” she says. “Come for me, Sandor” and then he lets go. He is all erratic movement as he listens and comes inside her, head bowed and pressed to her shoulder, his hair a scatter across his back and her chest, his breath a rapid, strained gust on her skin. Sansa’s eyes slide closed just as a smile spreads on her face, as the throbbing fades away, as his head lifts so he can kiss her. But there is no other move made to separate them and for that she is relieved, because that is the last thing she wants.

 

“I’ve never in my life,” she says sometime later, when they are both lying in the dark, Sandor on his back with her head on his chest, and even without light he knows where she is, is dragging his fingers through the length of her long hair, root to tip, and it’s soft and dry now because they have been lying here for hours, occasionally on the seaward drift of sleep, but something always pulls them back to shore. It could be her sigh on his skin or if her fingers drift close to the waist of his boxers, it could be his hand down her arm or when he grasps her hip, or the shift of their legs that always seem to be in a tangle. He never took himself for a man who likes to cuddle up but it seems impossible, the idea of breaking away from her to roll on his side, turning his back to Sansa, and he wonders if this means he will never sleep again.

“Hmm?” he asks, tipping his head towards hers, and he can smell his shampoo in her hair as if he has marked her in any way he can think of. Sansa’s hand slides across his chest to tuck itself between his body and his arm, her body twisting slightly to press closer to him. He takes a deep breath, the inhale of a happy man.

“I’ve never done _that_ , _like_ that, I mean,” she says, and she makes them both laugh with her shyness. “Never asked for it like that, never wanted it like that,” she says softly, and his suppresses a shudder at the sudden memory of her ensnared beneath him, face contorted because she wanted _him._  More of him, all of him, and she begged him for it. Sandor rubs a hand over his face, wondering if he’ll ever get over how it’s them together now, and then he shakes his head.

“I haven’t either,” he says because it’s true, and she gasps in shock.

“You’re _kidding_ me. _You_? But you- I mean, with me you’re- I mean, damn. Sandor, you’re the best I’ve ever had,” she murmurs, and he’d laugh if he wasn’t so goddamned pleased to hear it, but now it’s his turn to say _You’re kidding_ and she mentions the ever elusive double orgasm she’s never had, she briefly, shyly mentions oral sex and then tells him she doesn’t believe him, because she’s never been so come undone before. He finds her forehead in the dark and kisses her.

“Baby, what kind of love life do you think I’ve had?” He is gentle as he can be when he says it, because being here with her more than makes up for it, but still, it was a lifetime of pain, and that is hard to shake free from. Sansa stills in his arms, asks him to tell her, and so he does: The drunk women and the ill-concealed disgust, the near-scream and how in the end it just wasn’t worth it.

“ _That’s_ why you wouldn’t kiss me at Congress?” she says, kissing his chest when she lifts her head, and he sighs.

“Yeah, but I won’t make that mistake with you again. You want to have some drinks, you go right on ahead and if you feel like kissing me, I swear I will never stop you again,” and she says _Good,_ and then they find each other in the dark so she can kiss him now because _I want to, and a promise is a promise._

“I still can’t believe that woman,” she says after several moments of silence. “What a _bitch,_ ” Sansa says with enough venom that it shocks a laugh out of him. “Those scars are not scary at all, you know,” she says, but even when he teases her about Sansa Scars she sticks to her guns and stands by her statement. “I’m serious,” she says, and now to his sorrow she is up and has pulled away from him, and he hears her groping in the dark, the scrabble of her hand on his nightstand and the close call of a nearly knocked over glass of water, but then there is a flick and a bloom of light that makes him swear and squeeze his eyes shut, but they fly open soon enough when he feels her straddle him. She’s in panties and one of those see through men’s undershirts she loves to sleep in and while they’ve sated one another twice that night it’s still hard to look away from her body.

“Look at me,” she demands, and he lifts his eyes to hers with little issue, and then she’s lowering down on top of him, her forearms folded like a cat’s on his chest as she brings her face close to his.

“I like those new freckles you got there, sunshine,” he says, tapping a finger on her nose before brushing his thumb across her cheek. She’ll never be tan, not with her complexion, but there’s more peaches than cream now, as if she’s warmed up to life here, warmed up to him. _Love,_ he thinks. _So this is love._

“And I like those scars you got there, baby,” she says. If you grab a snake by its tail and crack it like a whip, they say you can behead it in a second’s time, and it’s with that sort of sharp suddenness that he feels assaulted, and he stares at her, part of him ready to snap _Are you fucking kidding me with this,_ but then she scoots forward on him and kisses his left cheek, over and over again, from where they come closest to his beard and mouth, up to where they drift towards his temple. “They’re you, Sandor. How could I not like them?”

“Sansa,” he sighs, closing his eyes as she keeps kissing them, her lovely mouth on that disgusting nest of ruined skin, and he wants to pull away from her but she won’t let him.

“A freckle or a scar, Sandor. It’s just a mark on the skin, okay? And I’m not trying to downplay what happened to you,” she says hastily “but since it _did_ happen, and since those scars are there, I’m just trying to let you know, that’s all. If you never had them, well, then I don’t know,” she murmurs, and he opens his eyes at that. It must be a pained expression because she says _Oh, Sandor,_ and strokes his cheek. She is a bright lick of beauty in this half dark, nondescript room, and the topic of conversation further emphasizes to him how marred he is. “What I mean is, you have them now, and now is when I met you. I like you, so I like them. I _love_ you, so, you know,” she says, and it’s such a sweet smile she gives him that he groans, shaking his head as he closes his eyes.

“You’re impossible, woman,” he says, and then the clever creature brings up Genna, asking how long it took her to get over the sight of them, and he is forced to admit she never cared, not once, and never so much as mentioned them, and now Sandor rolls his eyes to see Sansa’s look of triumph as she sits up and folds her arms across her chest, just beneath her breasts, making his gaze drop for a moment.

“So, there. Listen to your kid and listen to your girlfriend. You’re perfect just the way you are. Genna and I can see it, Bronn and Margie can see it, so who cares about some dumb drunk woman?” Sandor grins slowly, taking his time to lift his gaze back to hers, wondering if she heard what she said, wondering if _he_ really heard what she said.

“Are you my girlfriend, Sansa?” he asks, sliding his hands up her bare thighs. “I’ve never had a girlfriend before.” Sansa grins back at him, tossing her hair over her shoulder with feigned haughtiness, though he makes her jump when he kneads his fingers into the softness of her ass.

“A girl finds a guy who can give her her first orgasm from oral sex, then yeah, she makes sure she’s his girlfriend,” and his eyebrows lift at that, and she laughs when he makes her clarify, blushes prettily in the low lamplight in this midnight hour, and says yes, yes, it was her first orgasm with his face between her thighs, with her fingers buried in his hair. _So many firsts between us,_ he thinks, and then he grins, tugs on her thighs until she’s off of his hips and on his stomach, the movement so sudden she unfolds her arms to brace her hands against his chest. Sansa looks down at him, mouth parted and expression delightedly incredulous as his fingers push up under the elastic of her panties.

“You want another one?”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104177752218/kiss-the-girl-chapter-17-feels)

It is a drape and a weight of covers, it is the crème brulee of the light and the warmth in here, the smell of his soap and the tuck of her body deep in the nook his provides as they lay spooned up on their sides, his arm holding her firmly in place, as if Sansa has anywhere else to go, as if there is anywhere else she’d rather be. But she’s awake before he is, can tell from the deep, near-snore rumble in his chest, the sound she always assumed men made in their sleep back when she still dated boys. The sound of his breathing is why she hasn’t so much as stirred though she’s been awake a while, because it makes his chest expand across her back, because it means he’s at peace, because it means the day has yet to start and she can linger that much longer in his bed and his space, can let everything that happened last night roll over and over in her head.

Sandor is insatiable, so hungry and so eager, and she would be overwhelmed if she didn’t find herself rearing up to meet him parry for thrust, blow for blow. It’s never been like that for her, and they finally discussed it after he drew back his face from her thighs and she finally felt strong enough to let go of the top of the headboard. She sat on the pillow beside him and slumped until her back was on the mattress, body like legs of wine sliding down the inside of a wine glass. As he hummed in pleasure beside her, as she stared in dazed wonder at his ceiling, all she could think of was his face and his tongue and his kisses  _beneath her_ , of all things. She felt underwater as she waited for her breath to steady, a reoccurring sensation throughout the course of the entire day and night, being limp-limbed and breathless. But then there were the frank and guileless conversations that ate away at the late night hours, his hand a sweep along the arm she had draped over his chest, his heart a steady drumbeat beneath her palm that reminded her of rain beating on greenhouse glass.

_So how many women have you been with? If that’s okay._

_I don’t really  know. Not that many, but not that few, either._

_Were any of them- did any of them- Was it ever good, like it is with us?_

_No, little bird. None of them even came close. What about you, how many men have you been with?_

_Just one. Harry._

_That asshole? Just him?_

_Yeah, him. And he was, hmm._

_Any good?_

_Maybe for all the other girls, but not for me._

_Yeah, me either. I mean, I got a scream or two, but not the good kind._

And then they laughed.  _We laughed¸_  she thinks as she smiles, because who talks about that stuff while you’re in bed with someone, but apparently they do, and it did nothing to snag the intimacy or ruin how close it felt like they were getting last night. She told him how selfish Harry had been and Sandor said more about the handful of women he’d been with, how the closeness was fleeting and counterfeit, always over before it began. He smoothed her hair as she told him, in far more detail, how horrified she was to find out that not only was she not good enough to please but wasn’t good enough for loyalty, how that had stung and how the threat to her health had terrified her. But she didn’t tremble or shake as she recounted the horrific visit to the clinic, sitting alone in a cold plastic chair as she waited with her arms wrapped around her knees.

The conversation, as clinical as it wound up being, even for such personal, private things, brought them closer together, she knows it from the way they ended up on their sides facing each other, talking in the fuzzy-edged globe of light, muted from the rawhide lampshade, soft enough to keep it conspiratorial, bright enough to keep secrets at bay. Kissing close, they talked until they yawned, until eyes closed and then he finally reached over her to turn off the light. And he’s still as close, close enough that Sansa knows if she turns her head it will be a mingling of auburn and black hair between them on the pillow, twisting together like columns of different colored smoke. 

He  _hmms_  in his sleep, the arm around her tightening, his hand squeezing into a fist at her ribs as if some phantom in his dream threatens to pull her away from him, and she closes her eyes to feel so cherished. She is reminded of when she touched his scars, how he breathed in deep before saying her name, and it’s such a wonderful feeling, to know she is dreamed of and that it’s Sandor doing the dreaming. She’d gladly stay still for the rest of the day, but there is a shift behind her, the rumble of breathing in his chest smoothing out to deep inhales and the sighing of exhalation in her hair, and then the clearing of his throat as he buries his face into the crook of her neck.

“I thought I was dreaming for a second there,” and she bites her lip as she smiles, eyes closing at the sleep-drenched lullaby of his voice, all the scratchier from his having just woken up and yet somehow soft despite itself, like a wool sweater on the skin.

“I think you were, actually,” and he gruffs a laugh at that as he gets his bearings on the morning, and he stretches out like the familiar unfolding of a well-read letter, and Sansa can feel his chest like a curved bow as he arches his back and turns his head to face the ceiling, straightens his long legs away from hers, though he never lets her go, but then he comes back to her, his knees tucking back up behind hers. She once thought of him as a bear, a big old bear rubbing his back on the house, but here with her now he’s nothing more than a big housecat stretching in the sun.

Sunlight streams in from his windows and paints the room in a golden summer glow, one she feels on the inside of her heart, a deep blush of warmth, and as Sandor returns to the land of the living he seems to take note of it.

“Jesus, it’s late, isn’t it?” he says, and she turns in his arms, just in time to see him twist onto his back, huffing a laugh as he sweeps his thumb and fingers across his eyes towards the bridge of his nose. “And I’ve got errands to run. You wore me out, woman,” and Sansa rolls her eyes.

“You wore your _self_  out, you animal,” she corrects him, sitting up with a stretch of her own before kissing his unburned cheek, and then he rises up with a flex of his abs, swinging his feet over the bed away from her, resting his forearms on his knees as he faces the light of day, greeting it best as he can now that he’s slept through the sunrise. Sansa walks on her knees across the king sized bed towards him, watches his ribs expand with a breath as she slides her hands up his back, across the tattooed outline of Arizona with the red heart where Sonoita is on this lovely little map of his, and she thinks about love as she traces it, wonders if she’s in that heart with him and Genna. His head bows when she kisses his shoulder, the constellation of Sirius below her mouth, the great spidery tree beneath her hands as she slides her arms around him.

“You’re so pretty,” she sighs, resting her cheek on the curve of muscle between his neck and the broad cap of his shoulder, and he chuckles with a shake of his head.

“You’re crazy,” he says, but his voice is low, and he lets her kiss his skin without further argument, and she thinks maybe, maybe one day he’ll listen to her without denial.

It’s past ten o’clock when they drag themselves from his bed, and it’s like retracing their steps last night to see his towel still on his bedroom floor a few feet from her still damp cowboy boots, and then there is the sprawl of his plaid shirt in the hall just outside his door, the heap of wet clothes by the door like a melted snowman, and finally the one that makes her blush, her bath towel still in a pool of terry cloth by the counter in the kitchen.

“The world’s sexiest, dampest trail of breadcrumbs,” she says as he walks everything but their boots to the washing machine out back, and his is a boom of laughter she can hear through the open sliding glass door as she brews a pot of coffee. His phone chimes with unread texts when he turns it on, and Sansa runs to change into more appropriate clothes when he swears under his breath and tells her Margie and Bronn are dropping off Genna in twenty minutes.

“What are we going to tell her? We’ve  _got_  to tell her, Sandor,” she says, walking back out in a tank top and jersey shorts, coming to stand in front of him where he lounges, happy as he pleases, in nothing but his underwear at the wooden table in one of the three mismatched chairs.

“Of course we’re going to tell her. We’re just going to tell her the truth. It’s about time that trend starts taking off around this place, don’t you think?” and he pulls her down onto his lap, coming close to making her spill her coffee before she sets the mug on the table. She grins when he tugs a lock of her hair, bringing her close enough for a kiss, winds her arms around him as the black of his coffee mingles with the cream and sugar of hers,  and then the door bangs open and there is a shriek of delight.

“It’s just like the mermaid movie! Margie, Margie, it’s the mermaid movie!” Genna squeals, and this time it’s Sansa who does the swearing, with a  _Jesus Christ they’re early_  under her breath, but Sandor just grins when they draw back from the broken kiss. His gray eyes are bright, and  _Merry,_  she thinks with a shake of her head.  _His eyes look merry for one of the first times I’ve ever seen._

“I guess that’s one way to tell her, huh, sunshine?”

 

Sandor gives her hip a light slap by way of telling her to stand up, and then he’s making his excuses for his negligible attire to Margaery and Bronn, who are all raised eyebrows and ill-concealed grins, and to his horror Margie’s got her camera hanging from around her neck.  

“No, no, don’t worry, I just brought it to show some pictures I took of Genna before I develop them. No one wants a picture of you in your underpants. Well,” she muses as he walks away from her down the hall and Sandor rolls his eyes as she amends her statement. “Maybe  _one_  person does.”

He is deeply, darkly, ferociously pleased to see the dishevelment of his bed once he’s back in his room, the indentations on both pillows a calling card of his happiness, and he stares stupidly at it as he steps into a pair of old broken in jeans and a black shirt, figuring today’s trip to Costco doesn’t require his Sunday best.

“Daddy?” It’s a small voice from the threshold of his room, and he’s tying his hair back with an elastic tie in the bathroom when he hears it, tiny and high and perfect, and Sandor realizes he’s missed her, and he grins when her patience wears out in the two seconds it’s taken him to answer her, and the room is full of the sound of  _DADDY!_

 _WHAT_ he bellows, padding back to his room to see her standing just inside his room. “What’s up, half-pint?” Sandor sits on the edge of bed and she comes scampering over to him, her hair in two buns on the top of her head that make it look like teddy bear ears, and she clamors up into his lap, and he  _Oofs_  from the power of her hug. “You’ve been working out extra like I told you, haven’t you?”

“Nooo,” she says with amused emphasis at how ridiculous he is to even suggest it. “I missed you a lot,” she says, and he rests a hand on her back as she increases the effort of her arms around his neck.

“I missed you too,” he says, and that seems to placate her, and her arms drop from their death grip around his neck. She cocks her head back like a little owl and looks up at him, her face serious as she regards him, but then she speaks and he realizes her wheels are turning as she tries to figure something out.

“Are you and Sansa like Margie and Bronn now?” she asks, her little _Rs_ rounded out with the faintest touch of _Ws,_ and he has to wonder what sort of half-naked lounging around those two get up to when they’re babysitting his kid, but then he’s never one for wearing a shirt and she’s used to that well enough. Sandor nods, as serious as she is, because this is no laughing matter. He never thought he’d ever have this kind of conversation with her, never thought there’d be reason to, a reason for the  second pillow on his bed, or else he would have grilled Gayle on how to discuss it. So Sandor wings it.

“Is that okay, if we are? Would you like that?” His heart’s in his throat for the half second it takes her to register the question, and then she breaks out in the wildest grin.

“So you kiss on the mouth like Margie and Bronn? And hug and smile a lot? And you watch movies like you and me watch movies?” Sandor huffs a laugh, nodding as he imagines the three of them sprawled out the way this little girl does; even with two sofas there’d be no room for Genna’s style of lounging.

“Yeah, sugar. We kiss and we hug and we smile, and whenever you want to watch a movie, we’ll watch it however the hell you want,” he says, and she beams up at him.

“Okay, I like that,” she says, but then she tosses him like a rock into a pool of oblivion. “Do you and Sansa sleep in your bed like Margie and Bronn?” Here he treads carefully.

“I think that will happen,” he says slowly, and after a few stops and starts he surrenders, tells her that he and Sansa decided they love each other, and people who love each other fall asleep together, like he and Genna do sometimes, like Bronn and Margie do in their bed.

“But _I_ sleep here,” she says with a frown, and now Sandor is worried that there is a spark of jealousy; she has had him all to herself since the day they met, and he doesn’t want to ignite it by bringing in Sansa and ruining what the two of them have. He is starting to wonder if Sansa was right to be so cautious before, when they first came together. “Will there still be room for me?” she asks with a long, solemn blink, and Sandor lowers his forehead to hers, and they look at each other, gray to gray, a connection of DNA and mutual understanding. _Love, too,_ he thinks, wondering how in the hell he’s drowning in it all of a sudden.

“There will _always_ be room for you, Genna. It’ll always be you and me, kid. We come together; we’re a package, okay? And now Sansa wants to love _us_ , if that’s all right with you,” and she breaks out into a wide, toothy grin, comprehension a sunrise on the flower blossom of her face.

“I _love_ Sansa! Sansa loves _me_ too?” She is wiggly like a puppy now on his lap at the prospect that she’s involved in this new development, and he chuckles.

“Gen, of _course_ she loves you,” and then she’s out of his arms like a shot, running with a screech down the hall to where Sansa presumably sits with Bronn and Margie, shrieking about how they can have sleepovers in her daddy’s bed now all because Sansa loves them.

The ride into Tucson goes by a lot faster than it usually does, and he remembers the first time the three of them were on the road, how their girlish chatter had allowed him to tune out and ignore them both, how now he strives to listen to their conversation about all the fun Genna had with Margie and Bronn, how they’re throwing a big bonfire party next weekend and how she got to take photographs with Margie’s big fancy camera and how she didn’t drop it once. Sandor feels the lightning arc of thrill when Sansa casually lets her hand fall out of a gesture to rest lightly on his forearm, and it’s hard to tell if Genna notices because she makes no mention of it, and by the time they’re in the Costco parking lot, he’s got his fingers laced with hers, bold as brass as their hands rest on the wide console between their seats.

“I never thought I’d be so excited to walk into a store,” Sansa says once they’re out of the truck, her hair a brilliant coppery red in the blazing heat of a Tucson afternoon in June, and while he is not a man who enjoys stepping foot into _any_ store other than Home Depot or the sprawling – if not overpriced – magnificence of Mesquite Valley Growers, there is still a certain contentment, a certain giddy joy to have Genna on his shoulders, his left hand circled around her ankle, and Sansa’s hand in his right. It is surreal and nothing he has ever expected out of life but there it is, and now he’s got a kid in the cart that his girlfriend pushes as he drifts behind them, hands in his pockets with his gaze bouncing back and forth between them. From Genna, Gregor’s genes but _his_ daughter now, who climbs around in the belly of the cart like a billy goat, making him smile despite himself, despite the fact that he tries to _never_ smile in public because of the looks it earns him. To Sansa, who is humming to herself as she lets her fingers run over the hardback covers of best sellers, fans through the pages before thunking one down in the cart, whose hips seem to sway just a little deeper to and fro when she glances back and catches him looking at her ass.

They make relatively short work of the long, long list of monthly shopping, due to the long strides they both have, but he stops cold in his tracks when they wander down an aisle and he sees Bella, the woman from the cowboy bar, the woman who nearly screamed in her recoil from him. She is black hair and blue eyes, a mini skirt and a layer of makeup, and she is as pretty as he remembers though there’s a mean edge to her know that he knows the truth of her. She’s chatting on her cell phone at a food sample station, but she freezes when she glances up and they lock gazes, and he sees the look on her face, the look everyone gives him, but this one is drenched in evident disgust. Suddenly it doesn’t fucking _matter_ anymore, because there is Genna’s babbling brook of a voice and between him and the cart is Sansa, pausing in the middle of whatever she was saying to turn back to him.

“Hey. Hey, babe, are you okay?” Sansa asks with a puzzled smile when he finally looks down at her, and she drops the hand she was waving in front of his face. He fingers a strap of her sundress, smiling at the feel of it between his thumb and forefinger before tapping the freckles on her nose.

“It’s uh, it’s nothing,” he says, but she arches a brow at him and gives him one of her looks, and he huffs a laugh with a roll of his eyes. Sandor nods his head towards Bella, who is now talking animatedly into her smart phone, and he steps closer to explain in hushed undertones who the woman is.

“Oh, _really_ ,” Sansa says, her blue eyes narrowing before she glances over her shoulder down the aisle. It is domestic warfare now, and he grunts in surprise when Sansa drives her hands into his pockets before turning back to look at him. “Well let’s tell her she can _fuck off_ , shall we?” she says with a devilish grin, whispering the words he’s never heard her say before. His eyes widen but soon slide closed when she drags him down with her arms around his neck, pressing a long chaste kiss to his mouth, as daring as they can be in front of Genna in the middle of a busy store.

“Sansa,” he murmurs, “you don’t have to—” but she shuts him up with another kiss before they grin against each other’s mouths when Genna says _That’s my Sansa and that’s my daddy and they’re in love and they like to watch movies_ to a passing family, and half the aisle erupts in laughter.

“Is she still looking at us?” Sansa’s voice is a low hum and a purr against the scruff of his beard, and he keeps his head inclined to her as he glances up under his brows. Bella has the phone in her hand halfway between her ear and her shoulder, mouth hanging open as she stares at them in mute shock. Sandor nods and Sansa says _Good,_ and he cups her face to steal one more kiss, cruel women be damned, because she’s his now and he can kiss her whenever the hell he wants.

 

He still gets up for the sunrise, has this entire first week of their relationship, is drawn to it as are the plants and life he so loves and cares for, and Sansa cannot fault him for it, wouldn’t dare to beg he stay longer with her, because she knows it’s who he is, knows he’ll come back, will ease back to bed with the smell of coffee and crisp morning air clinging to him like a cloak. Each morning he slips between the covers and lets her sleepy fingers divest him of his clothes, strips her down and he brings her to waking with his kisses and his hands, with those achingly slow thrusts inside her, even though she’ll have to get up for work at the daycare in twenty minutes, even though Loras will show up any minute. But they neither of them care, and she stifles her moans if he doesn’t do it with a palm across her mouth, her hands to the sheets and her legs around him if he doesn’t drag her on top of him, and then it’s hands to the headboard as she leans over him, as he whispers her name between the heat of his mouth that he presses to her breasts.

It is sleepy, hazy love at its finest, waking up with him, and it is the happiest she has been in her entire life.

It’s dawn on the day of Bronn and Margie’s bonfire party, and though they don’t work weekends, though Saturday is her day to sleep in she finds she can’t, and she wants him more than the extra hour or two of in-and-out-dozing, and so she tiptoes down the hall past Genna’s room to get herself coffee, and she cannot resist, even though it is summer, to shrug into that old quilted plaid jacket of his hanging on the hook beside the door. He’s sitting in the center of the park bench, arms stretched out across the low back of it, a navy blue coffee mug grasped around the rim by his fingers, and he gazes out towards the rising of the sun in his daily worship, though he half turns his head at the sound of her at the door.

“I always hoped I’d see you in that again,” he says when she sits down in the space on his right side, swinging her legs, bare save for the pajama shorts she wears, across his lap, and without fuss or fanfare he sets his mug down at her feet and drapes his forearm across her shins.

“You seemed kind of ticked the last time I wore it,” Sansa smiles, watching the sun draw herself higher up the wall of the sky before glancing his way, catching him staring. He grins with a shrug.

“You were everywhere, sunshine, already starting to drive me crazy. But then I realized I didn’t care,” he says, tugging a sheaf of her hair. He asks if he woke her and she shakes her head, adjusting to settle herself under the drape of his arm, tells him the truth that he’s everywhere for her too, and it makes him smile, and they gaze together at the eastern horizon in a silence that is slowly taken over by the chirping of birds and the distant rumble of trucks flying down the 83. The sound is an ethereal sort of whooshing, and pairing it with the thin layers of long, flat clouds makes her think of whales crooning in the ocean, as if she were sitting on the bottom of the sea looking up at the sun through the surface of the water. She tells Sandor and he grunts appreciatively, does not make fun of her fancies like others would and it makes her heart swell.

“So, I have to ask,” she says after a few minutes. “Are you not, you know, hmm. Does the idea of a bonfire bother you? After Gregor,” she adds with a murmur, and she wants to roll her eyes at herself because of course he knows what she means, but where he used to bite now he just shakes his head.

“I’ll admit I don’t get close, but no, I’m all right with it. They’ve thrown these before, usually for birthdays or when Margie got her first gallery showing up in Sedona. I’m used to it. Plus _he_ won’t be there,” Sandor says after a beat or two, and Sansa frowns, resting her head back against his shoulder as she sips her coffee, because she wants to be careful but she wants to ask more, but then he solves her dilemma for her. The timbre of his voice drops and it’s monotone but heavy with emotion as he lists off Gregor’s crimes, the girls he assaulted and the children he bullied, the way he shoved Sandor around and how his father was too tired and too weak to effectively protect his youngest son. “I was so fucking happy when I found out Gregor had never met Genna, you have _no_ idea,” he says. “Almost as happy as when I found out he died in combat. I can’t see him sparing his kin from his temper; he sure as shit didn’t with me. My only regret with my brother is I never got to lay into him, never got a chance to pay him back for this,” he says, lifting his forearm across her shins to gesture with his hand the scars on his left cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Sandor,” Sansa says, head tipped back and tilting to regard him. He huffs and gives her a small, sad smile.

“Me too, Sansa. Me too.”

“Come on,” she says, lifting her feet off the bench to swing them back to the cool concrete, though with the sun fully up now it will be warm in a matter of minutes. “Whenever any of us were depressed, and believe me, Bran had a hell of a time after the accident, my mom would make us a big breakfast, whatever we wanted,” and he’s groaning good naturedly as she drags him off the bench.

“Gonna fix me up with food, huh?” and he’s all dragging feet and rolling eyes, the biggest, surliest teenager she’s ever seen, and it makes her laugh, and though he’s putting on a big performance of disinterest, there is, she believes, humor in his eyes and an ill-concealed smirk.

“Yes, yes I am. Have you ever had lemon pancakes before?”

She and Margie are sitting on the open tailgate of Bronn’s truck, beating the late afternoon heat thanks to the enormous canopy of shade provided by a towering oak tree, and there is a mound of firewood behind them in the bed of his truck, stumps and huge gnarled branches, various skeletal remains of fallen or dead trees they found while rumbling around the sprawl of their property. Sandor and Bronn are hauling out the wood out of Sandor’s own pickup truck, they have collected that much wood, and Sansa stares unabashedly as he works, as Genna bops around them, a spry little grasshopper making friends with giants.

“It’s nice to look and know he’s all yours, isn’t it?” Margie asks with a rattle of ice in her mason jar, and she hops down to refill her tea from the banged up looking Igloo water cooler balanced on the side of the truck bed. “I’ve been staring at _my_  hunk half my life and I swear it never gets old,” she grins, tossing him a look over her shoulder. She is all eyes only for him, and Sansa wonders if she even sees the world around him whenever she looks his way.

“It’s _real_ nice,” Sansa says, because while Bronn is a fine looking guy, he just can’t hold a candle to Sandor, not in her eyes, and when he takes his shirt off and uses it to wipe his forehead she sighs, and Margie throws her head back and laughs.

“I am just _that_ proud of myself,” she says with a grin when Sansa says _What_ , coming back to sit by Sansa, and she takes up her camera to snap a few photographs of the men tossing wood into the great pit they’ve dug and lined with rocks. “Here, I’ll make sure to frame that one for you,” and then Sansa is batting her away when she tries to take a few close up shots of her.

“So what’s the special occasion for this party? Sandor says it’s usually birthdays or other things like that,” Sansa asks, and her heart warms to see the flush of pride on Margie’s face.

“He finally paid off the mortgage on this place, and it’s ours free and clear,” she says. “Bronny lets me help every now and again but he really wanted to do it himself,” and she explains how it was his father’s before him, how his dad scraped by to make ends meet but died without owning the land on which he lived, and how Bronn’s been determined to do it ever since the funeral. It makes Sansa regard him in a different light, and as Margie bites the straw in her jar with a grin as she watches her man, as Bronn catches her looking and comes to give her a sweaty kiss that she tries in vain to avoid, Sansa thinks of love stories and fairy tales.

It’s not long before there is a long row of trucks and SUVs, a few four wheelers and one beat up looking Mercedes Benz that trundles through the grassy terrain as if it’s an old plow horse and not a luxury vehicle. Someone hauls out a massive portable stereo and outlaw country fills the void, drowns out the hum of late afternoon crickets and crooning songbirds, and there is a giddy charge to the air that has Sansa grinning even though she has yet to have an adult beverage.

“That’s granny,” Margie whispers when Olenna steps out of the Benz and slams the door with gusto, patting her Texas style bouffant before looking around as the crowd starts to gather, as coolers are thunked down beside wheel wells between vehicles. “She’s got the hots for old Barristan, and I think she’s breaking him down,” and she and Sansa laugh when Olenna spies him and makes a beeline in his direction.

The fire is lit when the sun sets, and true to his word, Sandor leaves the fire ring to the others, letting Jaime and Renly toss more logs on once it’s hosed down with lighter fluid, and he’s sitting in the open bed of his truck, one foot on the metal, the other dangling down towards the grass when Sansa finds him with her gaze across the fire. She refills her sangria from Loras’s cooler, ruffling Genna’s hair before she climbs onto Loras’s back and he runs her around and in between the long line of vehicles. Sandor finds her with his gaze before she’s made it around the fire, and the cheerful flickers and dancing light color him in faint oranges and yellows, even with the distance between him and the blaze. It warms him up, makes his gaze that much more intense when she’s finally crawling up into the truck to sit by him, and he tugs her towards him by the waist of her jeans until she’s sitting with her back against his chest.

“Having fun?” he asks after sweeping her hair across her back and over one shoulder, and Sansa can’t help but notice that he kisses her throat as Willas limps by, because even though he staked his claim he can’t seem to help flaunting it, and she rolls her eyes.

“Yes, and apparently _you_ are too, jealous,” she says, laughing when he implies he does not know what she means, and they banter back and forth, people watching and sharing her Solo cup of sangria. Soon Jaime is dancing with Brienne on the ring of dance floor surrounding the bonfire provided by the light of the flames. He’s good for only having the left hand to guide her around, and she’s _graceful_ for being such a large woman, and then Loras is swinging Genna around like a rag doll, trying to compete for laughter and applause, but then Bronn sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles so shrilly Genna screams.

“Someone turn down that goddamned music, would you?” he says, squatting down to get another beer out of a cooler, and he cracks it open and shakes the beer foam off his hand before wiping it on the seat of his jeans. “Get over here, girly face, you’re a part of this too,” Bronn says, and he holds up his beer as Margie comes to his side and holds up her sangria, and everyone around them follows suit, Sandor and Sansa included.

“All right,” Bronn says, his boyish grin lit up like a Christmas tree from the firelight, “as most of you know, I’ve been busting my ass working with that asshole over there, trying for years to pay off the mortgage on this shit heap,” and Sansa digs her elbow into Sandor’s ribs with an _Aww_ , _baby, he mentioned you in his toast._ “And as of last month, I was finally able to do it,” and there is a swell of cheers and everyone lifts their drinks higher, even Genna, who manages to wrangle an empty kegger cup from Renly. When Bronn swigs his beer they all take a drink, and Margie says _Oh for Pete’s sake_ when Bronn keeps chugging away until it’s empty, and then he chucks the can into the fire.

“With that being said, let’s party until I can’t see straight, but before I do that, I’ve got one last thing to do,” he says amidst the laughter, digging in his pocket for something, and Margie is frowning in confusion at him. Sansa would be confused too but Sandor lets out a snort and a huff of laughter, says _I should’ve fucking known,_ and then Sansa gets it, and she claps a hand over her mouth. “Since I don’t have to make any damn mortgage payments anymore,” he says with a grunt, finally freeing his prize from the pocket of his jeans, “I figure I’d throw my money at something a lot prettier than a dozen acres and an old house. So,” he says with a grin, turning his back to the fire to face Margaery, getting down on his knee and holding up a ring between them. Margie has tears in her eyes that Sansa can see from here, her hands pressed to her mouth, and her blonde hair is a halo of gold around her, her happy tears are tracks of shimmer lit up by the firelight. “Margaery Tyrell, love of my life, thorn in my side, woman of my dreams, make an honest man out of me and say you’ll marry me.”

It’s the crackle of fire and a crowd of smiling faces as she nods her head enthusiastically, a hitch of breath in the back of her throat when she finally says _Yes, oh my God, yes,_   and there is applause and cheering when he slides the ring on, and her gasp of pleasure when he swiftly stands and hauls her up into his arms is so sweet, so full of surprise that Sansa reckons the only person in Sonoita that can pull a fast one on Margie Tyrell is the man she’s blind in love with.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104390634673/kiss-the-girl-chapter-18-feels)
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> [PICSEEEET](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/104390455923/jillypups-bex-morealli-enjoy)

He half expects Genna to come running when he closes the front door a little too hard, but it is the heavy quiet of a sleeping household. Peace and quiet, privacy and solitude are things he has always enjoyed, but he loves this peace all the more now that there are actual people to tiptoe around, now that it is not just a silent and _empty_ house. It fills him with more pride than he cares to admit even to himself, let alone out loud, this sweet fact that he has _people_ , now, and Sandor feels like a dragon lurking near its hoard of treasure as he pads barefoot across the front room. He refills his mug with coffee and is on his way back to his bedroom when one of the cell phones on the counter chimes with a text, and he leans over to see that it’s Sansa’s white smartphone next to his black, and it’s a message from her brother, Robb. _The oldest one,_ he thinks, remembering all the times she’s mentioned her sprawling family of quirks, _up there fishing in Alaska._

 ** Robb:  ** What's up San Fran, going down to Spokane for a family visit. mom says you're still down in AZ but I was hoping you could come visit at the same time. haven't seen you in over a year. is a week enugh notice? oh wait, i'm your big bro, of course it is :)

He snorts and shakes his head, thinking of how bizarre it would have been to ever get a cheery, good natured text from Gregor, had texting ever been a thing back then. He leave the phone on the counter for her to find later and makes his way down the hall, thinking one of these damned days he’ll have to sit down and make Genna clean her room, but then his perfunctory glance in her room registers the empty bed, and he frowns.

“Genna?” He whispers hoarsely, glancing stupidly behind him as if that little torpedo were capable of stealth, and then her own curious, worried words curl up in his thoughts like smoke and he dares to hope. He creeps as quietly as he can, as close to silence as a cat on a carpet after all the practice he’s had since his niece – daughter – came to live with him, and he is able to enter his bedroom without disturbing the vision laid out before him. Sansa has slid to his side of the bed, her back to the windows to shield her face from daybreak, and it’s a flare of red on his pillow with a smaller mop of black beneath Sansa’s chin where Genna has burrowed herself.

Sandor’s heart could burst.

They’re sound asleep, though he hasn’t been outside for more than thirty minutes, and so he is courage on two feet, as lightheaded as he feels right now, and he sets his mug on his dresser beside the door, careful not to make a sound. As he gets closer he can see that Genna is not spooned up with her the way he and Sansa sleep, but has tucked herself in, face to Sansa’s throat, her little knees drawn up between their bellies. There is only the white top sheet draped over them, warm as it is now, and he can see the curve of Sansa’s hip, the slope of her waist, how she has drawn Genna in to her with the drape of her arm. Sandor squats down beside the bed and rests his folded forearms on the edge of the mattress closest to Genna, and he rests his chin on his wrists, staring with a sort of indefinable wonder.

This is what he has wanted since Sansa dropped into his life like some meteorite or star streaking down to his world, and now it’s here, and it’s larger than anything he can muster up. It is even larger than his scars; for the first time in the twenty six years he’s worn them, something has risen up to push them aside in his mind, to show him how truly small and withering they are, a dried out blossom moments away from dropping away to the earth. But _here, here_ is something real and alive, something precious and rare that needs to be tended to, and he has tended to living things for nearly half his life. He wants to tend to this, desperately; the realization has him _scared,_ and yet he has never been so enthralled in all his life.

He slides an arm from beneath the weight of his chin and reaches out, his limbs long enough so that he might touch a tangle of black, and he exhales in a long, slow, quiet rush, because he know the smell of her kids’ shampoo, knows where to find it in Target now, knows how to brush a little girl’s hair now. His eyes lift from the curl around his index finger when Sansa sighs in her sleep, and if Genna has him snared then he will surely drown from the added trap of Sansa’s own net. _I’ve carried them both in my arms,_ Sandor muses, carefully pulling his hand away from the black curl, sweeping his arm across the mattress and bringing it back to fold with the other. _I’ve carried them both, and I do not want to let them go,_ and a series of images flash before his mind like a strobe light. He stands swiftly, raking his hands through his hair and holding it back against his skull, staring down at the two of them in disbelief over where his thoughts just ran to.

 _You’re losing your fucking mind, Clegane,_ he thinks, and he turns on his heel, careful not to disturb them, because this is his moment, as heavily as it is defined by the two of them, but there are things there that he has trouble picking up because of how his hands shake around his mug, things he has trouble looking at dead in the eye so he can say _Yes, you are what I want, and I will have you. I will have you all._

 

“Go on, hug Sanny and tell her you’ll miss her,” Loras says, giving Genna a push on her back though Sansa is happy to see that it’s not needed, not the way she runs into her arms and lets her lift her up. There is a most impressive scowl on Genna’s face, her lower lip drawn up over the top in the angriest little pout Sansa has ever seen, and she grew up with Rickon _and_ Arya. It is all she can do not to laugh, because that will not earn her any favors.

Sansa has borrowed one of Sandor’s bags, since her large suitcase is far too big for just a two week trip, and it sits now at the door under his plaid jacket where it hangs on the wall. The sight of it makes her giddy, even though she’s sad to leave Sandor and Genna, because Robb has already been back in Spokane for two days and she is eager to meet him, to forge the final link that brings her family together again.

Loras is about to take Genna fishing out at Parker Canyon Lake so that Sandor can drive her to the airport, and after a few conspiratorial winks after he got here, presumably so that they can say their goodbyes in a more adult fashion than is appropriate for curious four year old eyes. Sandor has taken a half day off of work though he has not showered himself off, much to Sansa’s delight; he is, as always, all man, scuffed boots and weathered jeans, a sweaty handkerchief and the stray leaf or twig in his hair, though he did peel out of his dirty t-shirt to change into a clean one, and he is slouched in one of the mismatched chairs, forearm resting on the table and knees cocked out, and he’s got a similar scowl on his face to Genna’s. _It must run in the family,_ she thinks with a smile.

“Why do you have to _go,_ ” Genna says, her little hands two grumpy fists in Sansa’s hair, and she hugs her hard before setting her down on her feet where the four year old upturns her face to glare up at Sansa.

“I told you honey, to go see my family. I haven’t seen my big brother in a long, long time and I miss him,” she says, laughing as Genna just glares at her.

“But _I’m_ gonna miss _you,”_ Genna says with a huff, folding her arms across her chest in perfect mimicry of Sandor, and Sansa wonders if she’ll grow up to be tall, if her gray eyes will flash and intimidate just like her uncle’s.

“Well, I’m going to miss you too, honey, but you and Loras are going to have so much fun you won’t even realize I’m gone,” she says, patting Genna’s head before she runs back to Loras, and they wave from the open doorway, Loras telling Sansa to have a fun trip and to bring him back something good, and the door closes on Genna’s voice as she asks if Sansa is going to bring her anything too.

“Impossible,” Sandor says from behind and above her, and she turns to see that he’s gotten to his feet without so much as a sound, is close enough to kiss, which is exactly what he does when she tips her face up to look at him.

“What is,” she asks as he bows his head over her shoulder, and she can smell the sun in his hair as it slips off his shoulders between them, and she whimpers when his beard scratches her bare skin as he kisses her throat.

“Not realizing you’re gone,” he says, and her eyes close as she smiles at his words. Sansa lifts up onto her toes and slings her arms across his shoulders as he fists the back of her t-shirt, head tipping back to give him more to kiss, and he accepts the offer, bending Sansa back in the arch of a dancer, and she feels as lithe and graceful as one in his arms.  “No Sansa in my bed, no Sansa in my house, no Sansa in my town,” he sighs, his exhale dying in the jaws of a groan when she tips her face against his, pressing a kiss to his scars before dropping a nip down to his shoulder.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re going to miss me, Sandor?” she murmurs before he grunts and lifts her up, turning on his heel to set her on the counter, and Sansa obediently parts her legs when he pushes against her knees.

“I’m telling you I will be miserable when you’re gone, that I will be one mean son of a bitch for two weeks all because you’re not here,” and she shivers when he slides his hands up her back beneath her shirt. She is still sore from last night, from working him over until it was _she_ pressing a hand to his mouth, holding his groans and his _Fuck, Sansas_ in the palm of her hand as she rode out the orgasms from both of them, when they finally managed to come together for the first time, Sandor leaning against the headboard with Sansa sitting astride him, back arching when he ripped her hand away from his mouth to kiss her breasts. She is still sore but it does nothing to temper her appetite for him, does nothing to keep her from wrapping her legs around him now.

“Well, at least everyone’s already used to that,” she says weakly, and he chuckles, lifting his head from her shoulder to kiss her again, and Sansa commits to memory the way his tongue slides against hers, how the soft of his lips is in direct contrast to his beard, how his scars feel under her touch and the way he tastes.

“I _will_ miss you,” he says, finally drawing back to regard her, and she smiles sadly when he adds _So will Genna. We’re both going to be such pricks to everyone._

“I’m going to miss you guys too,” she says, running her fingers through his ponytail that drapes over his shoulder and against his chest. _One tug and he’s all mine,_ she thinks, and she’s sorry that her plane takes off in two hours, sorry that the drive is half that time. “More than I think you realize,” she says, moaning when he runs his hands down her sides to grasp and pull on her hips, dragging her to the edge of the counter and into him.

“Jesus Christ,” he grits out, hands leaving her to grip the edges of the counter on either side of her, and he leans down, stepping back to let his forehead rest on her shoulder. “I have you drive you to Tucson and I can’t stop dry humping you like a horny teenager.”

He pushes away from her and takes her hand when she hops off the counter, the heels of her boots a wooden smack to the concrete, and she goes to take a last glance around her room to make sure she didn’t forget anything, and she swears under her breath when she sees she’s left her Kindle on her nightstand like an idiot, right in plain view, but then again she hasn’t slept in her bed in weeks now, and that makes her grin.

“Oh, before I forget,” she says, pulling her hair up and back into a hasty bun as she walks out into the hallway, “Shae says to send her with a lunch tomorrow because something happened with the grocery delivery and she’s all out of protein for the kids,” she says, because Willas has meetings in Sierra Vista tomorrow and needs Loras’s company and Genna has to go to Sunshine Daycare. _If I weren’t going away I’d be there with her,_ she thinks wistfully, but Sandor shrugs as he grabs his car keys from the hook by his plaid jacket.

“I wasn’t going to take her, just let her come to work with Bronn and me,” he says, and she stares in disbelief.

“Sandor, she’ll have to get up at like five am for that, it’ll wipe her out and mess up her routine. Don’t tell me it’s going to go back to anarchy around here,” and he shrugs again with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s two weeks, Sansa, give it a rest. She hasn’t come with me to the nursery in forever, it’ll be fun,” he says. “Kind of like old times, when it was just us smelly bachelors around here,” he says in an attempt at humor, and it does make her smile but she also frowns, because Genna was positively wild when she first got here, has taken such strides in the few months Sansa has lived here, and she’s worried about future meltdowns and tantrums, worried that Sandor will always just end up caving.

“You can’t though,” she says, sounding wheedling and nosy, hating herself for it as much as his cavalier attitude is frustrating her. “Sandor, she needs structure, and I know it seems like fun but believe me, even two weeks is enough time to wreck the schedule.”

“You’re not her nanny anymore, okay? Just drop it, all right? You’re acting like I was the world’s worst parent,” he says, hand on the door, and there is just her bag between them on the red floor at her feet.

“I’m not her nanny but I love her and I just want what’s best for her, and—”

“Oh, and I don’t?” he says, stepping into her, and now they’re toe to toe with her bag – his bag – acting as the only buffer. “Look, College Kid,” he starts, but then she glares up at him with her arms akimbo.

“Don’t call me kid, that’s insanely patronizing,” she snaps, and he _Oh-hos_ at that, giving her a incredulous look as he stalks back into the kitchen, filling a plastic cup with water from the sink faucet, and he turns to glare at her over the rim as he drinks thirstily.

“That’s real nice coming from you, after you’re basically telling me I can’t be a decent enough parent for my kid. What the hell,” he says wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, and she can’t believe it’s turned like this so quickly. Sansa does a quick think back but she still doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong.

“I just want you to maintain her schedule. Bedtimes, going to daycare, getting socialized with kids, getting enough sleep. That’s not so hard, is it? Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“ _Me_ stubborn? You can’t even handle the fact that I might do things my own way with my daughter while you’re gone,” he says with a scowl.  She’s always heard that couples fight most about money, but they seem to butt heads the most over this. “Am I really that bad, Sansa?” He polishes off his water, still looking at her over the cup.

“No, but, come on, look, she’s Gregor’s kid, okay?” It is fire and ice in the air now, with the cold, venomous look he gives her as the cup slowly lowers down away from his mouth, with the heat she feels in her chest and the tingling, numbing combination that has erupted into this fight.

“Don’t you dare fucking mention him,” he says, voice low and lethal, as full of poison as the look in his eyes. Sansa sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose in an attempt at self-mastery.

“Well, I mean, don’t you ever think of that?” and the flinch he makes is a dead giveaway. “You don’t want her to grow up to be as lawless and headstrong as her dad was, do you?”

“ _I’m_ her dad," he shouts, stepping towards her with such ferocity she takes a step back, even with the entire front room between them. “Not that vicious bastard, okay?” He tries to drink from his cup but there is no water left, and in a sudden explosion of temper Sandor turns and chucks it into the wide, low farm sink, and it bounces and clatters inside the porcelain so loudly, so angrily that Sansa wants to put her hands over her ears. It frightens and angers her in equal parts, and so she takes a step towards him, gesturing to the sink.

“ _Now_ who’s acting like Gregor,” she snaps, and she claps a hand over her mouth the moment it leaves her lips but the damage is already done. He looks broken when he turns back to look at her. Even from beside the front door she can see the pain in his eyes, even with the late day sunlight streaming through the western window over the sink that darkens his features so he is almost a silhouette. Tears spring to her eyes, and she says _Sandor, wait,_ but he holds up a hand, shaking his head at her as he chucks his keys on the counter, storming around it towards the slider.

“Sandor _,_ ” she says, desperate to right this wrong before she has to leave, but he sneers at her over his shoulder, looking back as he wrenches out the pin that locks the door in place.

“ _Fuck_ you, Sansa,” he says, shoving open the door so roughly it slams against its frame and bounces halfway shut from the force, and she is shaking from head to toe as she watches him storm down the hill towards the greenhouse.

“Goddammit,” she says, and then she bursts into tears.

She waits as long as possible, but he doesn’t come back to the house, and she knows better than to go down there after what just happened, after what she just said, so she calls Margie from the front porch. She picks up the phone with a cheerful _Hola_ that immediately fizzles out into _Calm down, calm down, what’s wrong,_ and when Sansa finally gets out that she’s going to miss her flight and needs a ride, that she’ll pay for Margie’s gas but she’s pissed Sandor off so badly he won’t even talk to her, Margie is already pulling up into the driveway, cell phone held to her ear with a hitched up shoulder as she leans over and pushes open the passenger side door to her Jeep.

Margie is a frown behind sunglasses as they drive west into Tucson, the sun beating her hair into burnished gold, and she lets Sansa cry in silence, occasionally lifting her hand from the stick shift to pat her knee in sympathy, and finally when Sansa’s tears are dried, for the most part, Margie speaks up.

“What happened, honey?” Margie asks, and Sansa tells her all of it, though her voice drops to a whisper and she stares out at the flat landscape stretching out on either side of the interstate when she gets to the fatal blow, and Margie says _Oh, shit_ and they are quiet for some time. _Fuck you, Sansa,_ he said, and she closes her eyes, letting her head drop back against the headrest as she sees his wounded look, the sunlight soaking into the black of his hair when he turned around to hurl that at her.

“Well,” Margie sighs, “I know it’s hard for you to grasp the, you know, the intensity of what you said in the heat of the moment,” but Sansa shakes her head and looks at her friend.

“No, he’s told me, I know how horrible he was, and I know I shouldn’t have said it, but he completely lost his temper, and—” but Margie holds up a hand to silence her.

“Hearing is one thing, Sansa,” she says, turning off the music that was playing at low volume, and the switch to silence is deafening because it leaves Sansa alone with _Fuck you, Sansa_ and _Now who’s acting like Gregor._ “But, believe me, honey, he was- it- Everyone knows someone who was hurt by Gregor, and I don’t mean just boys getting bullied. He- he always denied it, and he was star of the football team in high school, but there were so many girls; _So_ many girls,” Margie whispers, glancing in her rear view and over her shoulder to zip the Jeep over into the next lane to pass a Sunday driver. The deftness of the maneuver rocks Sansa to and fro in her seat, making her feel rootless until she realizes that feeling is because she’s on unsure footing after this fight, because she misses him already, because she fucked up so royally.

“He said something about girls before, but,” Sansa says, and just lets it die, because she’s compared Sandor to his abuser and to a rapist, and then she is crying again.

“Hey, now, now, now, don’t feel _all_ bad. He can be a complete idiot, you know. So you don’t get it about Gregor, whatever, it’s not something you can help, but he’s a fucking jackass, flying off the handle because he’s, what? A parent now? Don’t hog all the blame, okay? Genna told me that sharing is caring,” she says, glancing at Sansa over the frames of her sunglasses, and Sansa laughs, a watery, breath-hitched warble that is as weak as she feels, as useless as a plastic cup rolling around in a porcelain sink.

 

Margaery pulls up the drive and kills the headlights before the flash into the barn, and she sighs with a frown as she cuts off the engine, bracing her forearms across the steering wheel and resting her head against them. _These idiots,_ she thinks, wondering how hard it is to say sorry, how hard it is to just admit you screwed up. But no, instead there’s a crying woman on an airplane and a stubborn fool in a greenhouse. She lifts her head and looks at the ring on her finger; it’s a thin band of platinum with a solitary tanzanite stone and it’s perfect, and she thanks God and roses for Bronn, thanks driving lessons and summer nights lying in the grass under the stars for him, thanks him and herself for not being so _fucking_ stupid. “Although he was stupid for some of it,” she says out loud as she hops out of the Jeep and slams the door shut.

It’s been a hell of an afternoon, and she’s home just after sunset, and she is so drained from listening to their argument, so exhausted from how much work it’s been, getting these two together, and instead of heading right for the house she decides on some puppy therapy. Bronn’s mama dog Lollys had her pups six weeks ago, and there is nothing so fine as letting those little Aussie shepherds crawl over her lap, and so it’s to the barn she heads, where Lollys has set up mommy shop in an empty stall, and her fingers already itch to get themselves into some puppy fur.

“Shut up,” she mutters when Stranger tosses his head, his whinny a high pitched scream that makes her head hurt more than it already does, but despite her tough girl words she still skirts far from his stable door when she passes him by, and then it’s a sink down into the world of mamas and puppies, of warm, velvety tongues the width of her thumb but far sweeter, and as she stretches out her legs and leans against the stable wall of wood and history and _It’s all ours now, Margie_ , seven puppies scramble over her knees and her thighs in desperation to reach her hands, to curl up on her stomach and crawl up her chest to lick her chin, and she bursts out laughing when one ambitious pup goes so far as to dig her paw into the cup of her bra in the mad dash to kiss Margaery’s chin.

It’s then that she notices what must be the runt, tucked up and huddled alone in the corner of the stall, and her poor tired mother doesn’t even notice. “Shoo, you cute little brats,” Margie says, plucking puppy after puppy off of her before getting carefully to her feet. “Oh you sweet thing,” she says, scooping up the poor little pup, and she tells Lollys goodnight before dropping the little puppy right into the deep v-neck of her shirt, patting its little bottom as it shivers in the wedge of space her modest cleavage provides.

“Bronny, this little girl was all alone and I don’t think Loll—” Margaery stops dead in her tracks after the screen door closes behind her, because there on her sofa sits Sandor, and he is clearly drunk as a skunk. He’s got his forearms resting on his thighs as he hunches over, head bowed so deeply he doesn’t even look up at her, and there is a half empty bottle of whiskey sitting with imperious importance smack dab on the center of the coffee table. If she didn’t cradle a puppy in her hands, she would plant them on her hips and give them both a piece of her mind.

“Hey there, girly mouth,” Bronn says, and she raises her brows in question, but to her relief he gives an infinitesimal shake of his head, and he lifts a hand to twirl a finger in a circle at his temple as he looks at Sandor. _No shit he’s crazy,_ she wants to say, but she sighs instead.

“Hello, you two. Sandor, you’ve done it again, well played, I have to say,” and she hikes the puppy out of her shirt to nuzzle it as Sandor lurches up to look at her.

“She fuckin’ called me- she said his- Grig-Greg- _his_ fuckin’ name, she said at me. Called me it, whatever. What the fuck, Marge,” but she has no energy for his excuses or the way he ties himself to the anchor, over and over again before jumping into that freezing, murky ocean of his past, and while she has energy enough to slap some sense into him one more time, she doesn’t have the words for it anymore, and so she plops the puppy down in Sandor’s lap and then stares in subsequent bewilderment when his angry face falls into one of sorrow.

“Oh for Pete’s sake, what,” Margaery says testily.

“She’s always wanted a dog,” he says, lifting the puppy in the scoop of his two great hands to look blearily, waveringly into its eyes, and _He’s a great big drunk buffoon, a big heartbroken doofus there._ She thinks about him in high school, she thinks about him when _she_ was in high school, and Margie sighs, rolling her eyes before letting her gaze land on Bronn’s face. He raises his eyebrows and tips his head, ever so slightly, ever so lightly, towards their bedroom, and she sighs with a smile, because she’s picking up what he’s putting down. She points at Sandor with an attention-grabbing snap of her fingers. He glares at her with a _What?!_

“You can handle Stranger, so handle that little lady. Try not to bite her head off, you jerk,” she says when he slurs his _What the hell is this_ and _You can’t just, just, just, just, drop fuckin’ puppies on people, shit_ and then she’s in her bedroom, knocking Bronn’s socks off the manila envelope that rests on her dresser. She rakes her hair away from her face, noting she is in dire need of a shower after taking photographs all day on horseback, trying to capture as many as she could with the curious prick of Briar’s velvety ears in the frame, and then she’s out of the hall and back in the living room, opening the envelope so she can toss the 11x17 photographs onto the coffee table. They slide on each other and bounce off the whiskey bottle, and Sandor, despite being so fantastically in his cups, has the reflex to catch one, and Margie grins. _Die on your own sword, you silly man._

“What- when did- I don’ get it,” he says with a  shake of his head, and she smiles as she watches him cradle a puppy to his chest in his right hand while he holds in his left a photograph of him, standing outside in the backyard of Hops and Vines, and he is nothing but strong back and plaid shirt, a whip of auburn that has blown over his shoulder, long legs wrapped around his hips, hooked at the ankle of two brown cowboy boots just above his ass.

Sandor lets the dog sit on the stretch of his jeans between his thighs, and she lays there as if lounging on a hammock as he leans over, and Margie crosses her arms over her chest as she watches Bronn’s oldest friend. Dearest too, however bizarre it came to be. He sifts through them, the photo of Sansa trying to hide from her camera at the bonfire party, her hair a sway of red in the air; the photos of him and Bronn digging yet another pit, the photo of Sansa and him sitting at the table the first time she went to Hops and Vines, and then the best, the photo she took like a paparazzi when they stood and talked in the greenhouse, a bloom of light in a little glass house set in the inky backdrop of Sonoita at night. It’s the sight of that photo that makes him suck in a breath.

“Okay, so what,” he grates out, chucking the photo back to the coffee table, and Margie narrows her eyes. “So, you’re here to like, try and fix everything again? Margo- Margi- you to the fuckin’ rescue again, huh?” He flops back against the sofa and the puppy crawls up his chest, ad when Sandor lets her sniff a knuckle she nips it, and he swears, though it does not stop him from petting her.

“I’m not here to fix shit, sweetheart,” she says, picking up the bottle of whiskey, unscrewing the cap so she can swig from it. It’s not her favorite but it will do, because he is _trying_ her, tonight. “I helped get you together, but you’re a grown ass man, Sandor, and she’s a grown ass woman.”

“Don’t we know it,” says Bronn, and Margie chucks the whiskey cap at his head. She knows him, knows he could catch it if he wanted, but he simply turns his head and lets it bounce off his temple, and she fights the smile, fights the urge to throw the bottle at him, to throw herself right on top of it all.

“I didn’t- I mean, she called me Gregor, Margie, fuck man,” he says, and now it’s a pull of his attention, between the puppy and her, looking up at her with his doleful drunken gaze before dropping it to raise his eyebrows at the little pup, trying to get her to bite his finger again. She laughs, has to snap in his face again to regain control of his drunken attentions.

“Figure it out, buddy. If you’re sorry, tell her. If you love her, show it. How is this so fucking hard, Sandor?”

“Wanted to marry her,” he says, his eyelids closing in the slow steady droop of drunkenness that is just impossible to fight, and Margie sighs, thinking she’s going to have to call Loras over here, because he is absolutely in no state at this point. “Wanted to, thought about it a week ago. In bed with Genna, fuck, it was perfect. All I ever wanted. Wanted to marry her, man, and then this.”

“Of course you want to marry her, you love her,” Bronn says as he sighs, folding his arms behind his head as he finally sits back against the sofa cushions. He lifts his gaze from his friend, and Margaery smiles before she can help herself. She spins the ring around and around on her finger, the whiskey a nice warm burn down her throat, but it’s nothing so fine as the look he gives her. “Just try and survive your first fight before you go down on one knee,” Bronn says, and she tosses her head back and laughs.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104473901323/kiss-the-girl-chapter-19-feels)

It’s like pulling an old, familiar sweatshirt over her head and burrowing into the well-worn softness of it when she steps foot back on Washington soil. Rickon and Robb pick her up at the airport, the latter with a beard. Her littlest brother is nearly as tall as her eldest but not yet strong enough to swing her around the way Robb does when he bear hugs her clear off her feet. But she gets hugs out of both of them, Robb smelling like cedar and Rickon smelling like cigarettes, and after everything that happened earlier that afternoon, the love of her siblings is enough to make her start crying all over again.

“Jesus, San, you okay? I know it’s been forever, but still,” Robb says, drawing away from her with an arm over her shoulder as they walk out of the airport, Rickon slinging Sandor’s duffel bag across his body once she tugs it from the baggage carousel, and the air is so _cool_ up here when they’re in the parking lot. It is at once a comfort and a reminder of how far away she is from him, from Genna and everything she has grown to love down in Sonoita.

“I’m just tired, I think,” she says with a weak smile. “I didn’t um, I really didn’t sleep well last night,” she says as they toss her bag in the back of their mom’s Suburban. “Wait a minute, _you’re_ driving?” she says, shocked and a little terrified when it’s Rickon with the car keys. He is a tall, skinny stripe of long sleeved t-shirt and black jeans, an overgrown jet black mohawk that makes her think of poorly mowed lawns, and it all makes her love him more for it.

“Hey now, missy, I turned 16 two months ago and got my license the second they let me out of the house,” her baby brother grins, and he regales her of all the mischief he’s been up to, stating that his high school principal really is a massive cunt, and that the graffiti with which he covered the side of the gym took them a week to remove.

“So who’s this girlfriend of yours who made you do it?” Robb asks from the backseat, and his grin curls his words and injects them with mirth. “Mom says no one’s met her. I’m here for two weeks, you gonna introduce me?”

“Not a chance,” Rickon grins as he swings the huge SUV around a corner, and Sansa grits her teeth as she grabs the oh-shit bar. “But please, tell us all about your Alaskan beauty queen,” and Sansa tries to listen to her big brother, to learn all about a girl named Talisa, and _man_ , has Robb got details to share: the length of her hair and the shape of her eyes, how she’s the most perfect woman he’s ever seen, all about the work she does as a nurse and how he met her in the hospital when he got sliced up pretty bad slipping on the deck of his captain’s ship, _Winter Wolf_. She _tries_ but her attention is in and out because he speaks of love and obsessions, and she has a hard time shaking free from the smell of Sandor’s sheets and the feel of his arm when they sleep curled up together, the purpose of his stride when he crosses the yard, how he squats down beside Genna’s bed to kiss her good night.

“Earth to Sansa,” Rickon says, and she blinks because they’re home already, the lawn as green and lush as her memories painted it, and they rumble up the driveway towards the garage that looks like a barn, big enough to house three cars and a bunch of four wheelers, five bikes and a mountain of old tricycles and skateboards, scooters and Bran’s first wheelchair, a heap of nostalgia their mother swears she’ll donate to Goodwill, though Sansa suspects she’s got more attachment to it than she is willing to let on.

“Goddammit, Arya left the door to the Honda open,” Rickon says as he shuts off the engine, practically leaping out of the car to stalk into the garage and slam it shut, and Sansa laughs because it’s her wild baby brother being the voice of responsibility, but then she gasps and turns around to look at Robb, who is unbuckling his seatbelt.

“Wait a minute, Arya’s still here? I thought she wanted to join the Peace Corps,” Sansa says, and Robb laughs. He looks so like a man, a tousle of hair and that beard coming in, more than he ever has before, and she thinks life up north must suit him. _The way life in Sonoita suits me._

“They were going to but she and Gendry backed out when they found out they probably wouldn’t get shipped off to the same location. They tried moving to Seattle but couldn’t afford the rent, so they’re back here. You didn’t know?” And now she realizes how isolated she’s been, willingly so down there in the high desert, lost in love and the pale grasses that sway beneath the sun.

“No, I guess I didn’t,” she murmurs, and then it’s a veritable explosion of activity and noise and _sister_ when they walk in through the back door, Arya dropping her fork into the saucepan of mac and cheese she was eating out of, and she launches into Sansa’s arms with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Robb takes possession of the saucepan and hitches himself up on the counter, digging into Arya’s food, chuckling as Sansa staggers back from the weight of sisterly love.

“Oh my God, look at you, cowgirl! Calamity Jane over here,” Arya says once she holds her at arm’s length, and when Sansa looks down she supposes she has slipped somewhat into the southwestern lifestyle, standing here in flared jeans and cowboy boots, a peach colored tank top and a white button down hanging undone over it. It’s hard to remember what she wore before, what costumes she did herself up in, because it feels too natural in the clothes she’s in now, too natural and too comfortable to imagine wearing anything else.

“I could say some things about _your_ outfit, sergeant,” Sansa says with a laugh, tugging the sleeve of the oversized army coat she’s wearing with a Social Distortion t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and Arya grins and shrugs, and as Sansa suspected it’s Gendry’s jacket, and then her thoughts run sad, because there is a quilted plaid coat she so adores, and now she wishes she’d stolen it.

The house even smells the way she remembers, always of spices and herbs in the kitchen, as much from her brothers’ and sister’s experimental attempts at cuisine as it is from her mother’s more sensible cooking; of flowers and fresh air in the living room; of warmth and coffee in the den. Each room its own scent and feel, the kitchen dark from outdated tile and wooden cabinets that her father swears he’ll update as soon as he can get around to it, the den woolly and soft from overstuffed sofas and throw blankets everywhere, the living room a sprawl of wood floors and huge bay windows that are always open from spring to fall.

“Where’s Bran? Mom? Dad I know has to be working late,” she says, because her father is nothing if not dedicated to Winterfell Forestry Company; being made CEO ten years ago never put Ned Stark in a suit, and he walks the woods alongside new hires and temp workers with more eagerness than he takes conference calls and lords over meetings. But their mom hasn’t worked since she quit teaching after Bran’s accident.

“B and mom went grocery shopping for more food. Gendry’s coming for dinner and so are Jon and uncle Ben,” Rickon says by way of explanation, leaning over as he opens the fridge to stare inside, a bottomless pit though he’s as skinny as Sansa and a good three inches taller. He drags out a plate of leftover pork chops and a Tupperware container of pasta, setting them on the counter as he paws around for more, all the while complaining that there is never anything to eat.

“Tell me everything,” Arya says as she follows her upstairs to Sansa’s old bedroom, and they pause on the stairs as a brotherly argument erupts over leftover Chinese takeout, and there is a grunt and a scuffle, the sound of silverware clattering on the floor, and then Rickon is screaming _Uncle! I said uncle, goddammit_ and Arya and Sansa burst into laughter.

“Everything, what?” Sansa asks as she pushes open the door to her old room, a shrine of old posters, the strands of Christmas lights still wound around the headboard of her bed. She drops her bag by the dresser and turns, and her sister pins her with a singular look, her gray eyes brooking no argument. Though her fire-red hair is a distraction, the gray gaze makes her think of Sandor, and before she knows it she and Arya are sitting tailor style across from each other on her bed, elbows on their knees as she unloads _everything_. She starts from the moment she met him to the moment she crushed on him _hard_ , talks tattoos and bare chests, making Arya grin like a wolf, talks plants and sunrises and horses and wine and Genna, Genna, Genna.

“So you’re in love with him,” Arya says with a shake of her head. “Pretty girl Sansa in love with a great big brute and a bad attitude. If only seventeen year old Sansa could see you now,” and she laughs when Sansa swats her. “So wow, you’re banging your boss, huh?”

“Arya, Jesus, don’t say it like that, it’s so… it’s so much more than that. And he’s not my boss anymore,” she says with a finger aimed at her sister, who looks confused, and when she asks what she means Sansa tells her, delving _back_ into the complexities of how she and Sandor came together, and then it’s a tremble of her chin and the tears that spring out of nowhere, it’s the fight all over again, and Arya hugs her as she has to go into the background of his scars, of how horrible Gregor was and how bitchy it was of her to call him that sort of monster.

“In our first fight Gendry called me a cocksucker, which wasn’t _entirely_ untrue,” Arya says, grinning when she makes Sansa chuckle, “but it was still a dick move.” Then she shrugs with a smile at Sansa’s gasp of surprise when it sinks in that they fought, because her sister and Gendry have been together since high school and she has never so much as seen them look at each other in a mean way, let alone seen any signs of a spat. “Whatever. The things I called _him_ were way worse,” she says with a laugh. “All you have to do is just say you’re sorry, dummy,” and Sansa sniffs as she sits back up from her sister’s hug.

“It was so bad though, Arry, I don’t think he wants to talk to me. He didn’t even leave the greenhouse before I left. He didn’t even say goodbye,” she trails off, staring down at her hands.

“So what? Neither did you,” Arya says, pulling her vivid red hair back away from her eyes, and Sansa stares unseeing into her little sister’s face because she’s right, she didn’t say it either. _How can I be so freaking clueless with him,_ but she has the answer already in her heart because he leaves her breathless, takes all thoughts away and all meaning away until there is nothing left except a heart that beats only for him. “Anyways, that’s what texts are for. Come on, you can unpack later,” she says, standing up and holding out her hand. “I think I heard mom pull up, and dad can’t be that far behind.”

Dinner is as crazy as it always was, if not more so with uncle Ben and their cousin Jon added to the mix, and Gendry there to joke with Robb and talk cars and quads with Bran. Arya teases B about his new boyfriend, which shocks the hell out of Ben to the point that he’s choking on roasted potatoes because he had no idea Bran was in a relationship, let alone gay. Jon laughs as he pounds his father’s back, though Cat gives him a stern look when it comes to talk of relationships, a look that chagrins him somewhat, a look that confuses Sansa.

“His girlfriend Ygritte’s got a mouth on her, if you catch my meaning,” Rickon says under his breath when she asks him, and she rolls her eyes.

“Coming from the guy who wrote the C word on his school gym,” she says, spearing a piece of zucchini on her fork, and Rickon grins.

“Yeah, but I don’t say that word in front of mom the way Ygritte does,” he says around a mouthful of steak, and Sansa wonders if she’ll get a chance to meet this woman.

Her mom asks her all about Sonoita since the family has exhausted their curiosities over fishing boats in Juneau in the two days Robb has been home, and soon she’s being peppered with questions, ranging from the mundane to the ridiculous. Her mother asks about the weather and her father wants to know about the terrain and plant life, and Sansa’s heart aches to think of Sandor, the way his hands move when he talks about planting and the maintenance of life. Robb asks about women and Bran laughs when Sansa tells him how she schooled Sandor and Bronn gooning on a four wheeler, and Arya lightly asks about romance but Rickon bulldozes over _that_ awkwardness by asking how easy it is to steal liquor in Sonoita, and that earns him a sharp look from both of their parents.

“You okay, sweetie? You seem sort of sad,” her mother asks after dinner, after the dishwasher is humming and sloshing, coming to her side once she finds Sansa leaning against the kitchen counter, away from the hubbub in the den where Bran and Rickon are playing the Wii, where Arya and Gendry are arguing with Jon about whether or not they could get into the firefighter’s academy from which he recently graduated to follow in his father’s footsteps. Robb, Ned and Ben are talking grills out back, and Sansa wanted to use this time to see if Sandor had called or texted, but her cell phone has no good news for her.

“Yeah, I’m just checking my messages,” she says with a fake smile, slipping the phone in her back pocket before hugging her mother. Catelyn wears a soft silk blouse and the same perfume she’s worn since Sansa can remember, Boucheron, and it’s such a mom feel and mom smell that Sansa sighs against her collar with her eyes closed. She could be ten years old again, hugging her mother before getting on the school bus, could be eighteen again about to leave for college, could be hugging her before hopping on a plane to Arizona.

“It’s good to have you back honey. You’re happy down there, aren’t you? You said you’re no longer the au pair, so you know you could always come back to do daycare work here. Your room is always ready for you if you want it.”

Sansa thinks about it. She thinks about Sandor, the stop and start, the push and pull of them. She thinks of wild Genna, the way sweat dampens her hair on the back of her little neck when they cuddle up together. She thinks of Bronn and Margie, of the rolling grassy landscape and the towering oaks, the way the sun spears the sky with pink lemonade light when it finally breaks free of the horizon. She thinks of the smell of his soap and the weight of his hands on her, the sound of _I love you_ and the curve of his back under her touch. Sansa nods.

“Yeah, I’m happy. I can’t leave there, mom. It’s- I think- Sonoita is my home now,” she says with a smile, and when her mother nods and hugs her again, when she sweeps out of the room at the sound of breaking glass coming from the den, Sansa whips out her cell phone, bringing up Sandor’s contact information. She’s not _fully_ happy right now, not after that fight, but there’s only one way to fix that, and she types out a text in a hurry, heart pounding once she hits send, but then she exhales in a rush when she sees that he’s already typing a response.

 

“Fuck me,” he groans when he wakes up, when the pound of his head snaps and cracks like a whip, and it takes him several seconds to figure out that he is on Bronn’s couch, that he can still taste whiskey and it makes him want to vomit, that there is a small puppy sleeping on his stomach. The sunlight is a flare of pain, streaming in through the front window without hindrance of blind or drape, and he’s pretty sure the lack thereof is completely intentional.

“Oh, are you awake?” Margie’s voice comes in from the kitchen, and even from here he can discern the sarcasm mixed into the cloying sweetness of her words.

“Shit, Genna,” he says, pulling himself up into a seated position, heart hammering in panicked competition with his headache, and the puppy tumbles and rolls down to his lap, and now his head _really_ complains, and he starts to regret the motion. Margie emerges from the hall, a dish towel over her shoulder and a spatula in her hand. She has her hair tied back and isn’t wearing makeup, is in pajamas with an exasperated sort of look of amusement on her face.

“I took her to Shae’s this morning. You passed out at like nine o’clock, so I had Loras bring her here. She slept with us while you snored like a drunken sailor out here. I told her you weren’t feeling well, which certainly isn’t a lie,” she says, hands on her hips as she stares down at him. “Bronn is working solo over at Renly’s, by the way. Something happened with a few of the apple trees you guys planted. Not that I mind him slaving away all by his lonesome, or babysitting your sorry ass,” she says with an arched brow before turning and heading back to the kitchen. "You want any breakfast, Casanova?”

“Casanova,” he repeats with muzzy confusion, because that’s the last thing he feels like, with Sansa gone and the taste of death in his mouth, with the pounding of his head and the heavy press of their argument weighing him down. Margaery laughs.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, and he hears the sizzle of something cooking. “Check your text messages, honey,” she says, and now Sandor is filled with dread. He is a hard man to embarrass when Bronn isn’t around egging himself on with sex jokes, but when he picks up his phone from the coffee table, placed next to the whiskey as if it’s _trying_ to throw that in his face, Sandor is already mortified. Sure enough there was a flurry of texts between Sansa and him, all starting with an apology, sweet even in this cold technological type of communication. _I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the fight and for what I said, and I’m sorry I left you without saying goodbye. I love you._ And then there is his reply, slurred even in this format. _Sory to, bout everthig. I love you little brid, brid, brid, fuck goddammit bird srry._ Sandor sighs and holds his head in his hand, but aside from the horrific spelling there’s not much to be embarrassed over, and suddenly the pounding in his head doesn’t hurt so much as he scrolls through and reads her messages, declarations of love and missing him already, and his jumbled, fumbled attempts to woo her with the same sentiments. His hand leaves the wiggling puppy in his lap as he tries out a sober text to her.

 

**Sandor:** Hey, you. Sorry about last night, I got pretty drunk

**Sansa:** No kidding. ;) Hope you feel okay

**Sandor:** Better now, baby

**Sansa:** Good. Pop some Advil and kiss Genna for me

**Sandor:** Yes ma’am

 

He thinks about love as he eats his egg and cheese burrito Margie made for him, grunting his thanks as he slathers it with Cholula, the little puppy scrambling over his and Margie’s feet as she works on her laptop across from him, clicking and frowning as she edits her photography, and he thinks about art, thinks about pulling the two together, and ideas begin to form in his head.

“You uh, you got plans today?” he asks after clearing his throat, setting down the half eaten burrito to wipe his face with his paper towel and to swig his coffee, wincing as the heat of it slides down his throat.

“You’re looking at it, cowboy,” she says, not even lifting her eyes from the screen to look at him. Sandor sighs, because she’s clearly going to make him work for it.

“You uh, you think you could tell me where to go get some pictures framed?” and just as he expected, her apparent nonchalance dissipates, is replaced with the bubbling enthrallment he’s used to when it comes to her. She slaps shut the laptop with a wide grin, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, looking like Shirley Temple or some other kind of saccharine bullshit.

“Why, I know _just_ the place, Sandor! I’ll take you myself,” she says brightly, and he sighs as she stands, telling him she can be ready in ten.

“Your mom is one nosy brat,” he says when he looks down at the puppy sitting on his foot, but he smiles despite himself when the pup breaks out into a panting grin, cocking her head to the side, and she reminds him of Genna, but it’s ruined in a heartbeat, and Sandor throws his wad of paper towel onto his plate of unfinished food. “Goddammit, Margie, your fucking dog _pissed_ on me!”

She takes him to an art gallery in downtown Tucson, owned by a friend of her grandmother’s, and he is all grumble and mutter when he asks for what he wants, still half hungover, feeling disgusting even though he’s showered and changed. He’s a string of expletives when he is informed that it will cost extra to have them ready before Sansa comes home, and each extra slap of twenty dollar bills to the counter is paired with a _fucking this_ or a _fucking that._ Margie chides him for it as they walk down the sidewalk and Sandor vehemently refuses her offer to buy him a Bloody Mary at Hotel Congress.

It’s a hot day, being late June in the Sonoran desert, so hot it feels like the air is buzzing with it, like the sizzle of his eggs in the skillet earlier that morning. There is a heavy dose of humidity to the air, nothing to someone like Sansa but overwhelming to him and Margie. They’re sweating by the time they get back to her Jeep parked in the street, but despite the discomfort of the weather he still hesitates, fingers curled around the latch of the door, and Sandor squints as he gazes towards 4th Avenue, the street that connects and leads away from downtown, a funky stretch of cafes, bars, tattoo parlors and greasy spoons.

“What’s up?” Margie asks, her door open with a foot already in the vehicle. “Aren’t you ready to go home? It’s hotter than hell here,” and it’s as if the threat of going home before doing this one thing, this thing he’s thought of for weeks now is enough to convince him, and Sandor shakes his head.

“If you want, go get yourself a drink or something, but I uh, I’ve got one more place to go. Do you want me to meet you back at Congress?” Margie is all curiosity, and he thinks of a phrase about curiosity and cats, but he doesn’t fight it when she grins and slams shut her door, slinging her oversized purse over her shoulder. With an _Okay, mystery man, lead the way_  from Margiethey walk on, enjoying the relative respite from the sun as they walk in the shady cool of the underpass that covers the place where 4th Avenue bottoms out into Congress. There is a whistle and rumble that makes Margie squeal as a train rattles by overhead, filling his ears and drowning out the mostly one-sided conversation they were having.

 “Oooh, I think I know what you’re up to,” Margie says when they get closer to his destination, all wily grins and raised eyebrows, and he sighs behind his sunglasses, pulling his t-shirt off of the sweat on his chest, and she laughs when he stops outside of Black Rose tattoo. “I knew it! I am _so_ glad I brought my camera,” she says happily with a pat to that goddamned black hole of a purse, and he hauls open the door and ushers her through.

It’s a long, skinny room with framed photographs of tattoos on one wall and a long stretch of design ideas on the other, floor to ceiling, and the light is a bright, clinical white, the white of sterility and professionalism, something Sandor can appreciate considering he has gotten all of his work done here.  Dany looks up from behind the counter and grins, tossing her magazine on the glass beside the register before she stands and walks around to greet him. She’s dyed her hair since he was last here, and it’s nearly as dark as his in a startling contrast to the white blonde it was back in December.

“Sandor, what’s up? Haven’t seen you since you got _Genna_ done,” she says, gesturing to his chest before holding out her hand. He has always appreciated her lack of frilly bullshit, and she shakes his hand like a man would, firm and commanding, and you’d think this was her parlor instead of Drogo’s.

“Not much, not much. He busy with a big piece back there?” he asks, nodding his head to the back room where the loud buzzing of a tattoo gun can be heard, like the beating wings of a million dragonflies.

“Babe, are you almost finished?” Dany yells over her shoulder, and the buzzing stops.

“Ten minutes, tops. Why?” Dany tells him Sandor is there, and Drogo calls him to come on through, and then Margie is a flutter of excitement as she gets her camera out of her bag.

“Hey, man,” Drogo says with a grin, and if he didn’t know him better Sandor would find it a sinister expression, but if there’s one thing he can understand it’s that looks are deceiving, it’s that intimidation can occur without so much as a man opening his mouth to speak. “You here to give me more money?”

“Not much of it, but yeah, if you don’t have another appointment after this one,” he says, nodding to the woman stretched out face-down in the chair, her shirt completely removed to better let Drogo finish the scroll and quill being etched into skin the color of hot chocolate. It’s a beautiful piece, and Margie asks if she can take a photo of it, and Drogo agrees so long as he gets credit and a copy to hang in his gallery, to which _she_ agrees, and she snaps away as Sandor leans against the wall, watching him finish the feathering on the quill with a seven needle gun.

“So what are you thinking about getting this time,” Drogo asks the woman’s spine, though he glances up at Sandor during a brief pause of his work.

“You know the tree,” Sandor says, gesturing to his right side, and Drogo nods with a grin.

“That one’s my favorite of yours, though _Genna_ is pretty fuckin’ cute,” he says, going back to his craft. “What about it, you want another one? Maybe a tree for spring on the other side?”

“Like I have another $300 lying around for a tattoo that big,” Sandor snorts. “No, I was uh, I was thinking about adding something to it,” and he tries to glance surreptitiously to Margie, but she’s on him like a cheap suit. “A bird. A uh, a little bird.”

“So _that’s_ the new nickname you gave her!” Margie grins, and Sandor rolls his eyes as she starts tweeting and chirping, taking a photo of him right then and there. Even the woman in the chair chuckles when she finally has the go ahead to get out of the chair, and she stands patiently in her bra as Drogo introduces her as Missendei, tapes a wide swatch of gauze over the new tattoo before she puts her shirt on.

“I think it’s sweet,” she says with a smile to Sandor, and he deeply appreciates the lack of a flinch or look of repulsion at his face, but apparently she’s friends with Dany, judging how they chat with each other up front, and it makes a little more sense, because Drogo’s woman suffers no fools, no shrinking violets.

“I do too, man,” Drogo says, busy cleaning his tools. “I got a big ass dragon tattooed on my back when little miss told me she liked them. After that she agreed to date me,” he grins, and holds up his left hand to show Margie the tattooed band around his left ring finger. “And then I got her to marry me,” and Margie snaps a shot of him with his upheld hand.

He cleans his work station as Sandor strips off his shirt, pulling it over his head and wadding it up before Marge offers to hold it for him, and he settles in the chair, a familiar setting for him as any, and is serenity itself when Drogo turns towards him, and Sandor is not surprised that he’s already gotten the same shade of burnt sienna ink that the tree was done in.

“All right, buddy. Where do you want your little bird?”

 _My heart,_ Sandor thinks.

 

It’s already been a week, and Sansa finds that the time simultaneously flies and crawls by, seeming to last forever when she’s in her bed and it’s dark and quiet and she is able to dwell on how long it’s been since she’s slept alone. It creeps by without the warmth of his chest on her back or beneath her cheek, without the bristle of his beard and the tattoos on his body that she loves to trace. But it zips by like a shot during the day when they strap Bran in and they tear all over the yard on the quads, all revved engines and races into the woods behind the house, or when Arya and Gendry take her and Robb out on the town and get them all so fall down drunk doing shots that Cat has to come in her pajamas to pick them up because no one can figure out how to call a cab. And it flies when they sit down to dinner each night like they did back when they were all still in school, and she listens to her father talk about controlled burns and hunting licenses, about flushing three doves out of the chimney and nearly throttling her littlest brother when Ned found him trying to set fire to his old stuffed animals when he had a nightmare they were trying to kill him.

But right now it’s another drag of time, an early Saturday afternoon that has Bran at his physical therapist’s with Jojen, that has Arya filling out applications over at Winterfell and Robb and their mother out so she can buy him a decent suit for once in his life. It’s a quiet, lonely house as she sits at the kitchen table trying and failing to read on her Kindle, because every other word starts to read like his name, and finally she lets the damned thing fall from her fingers to the table. Sansa sighs, holding her chin in her hand as she gazes sightlessly through the glass French doors, and she jumps like a startled cat when her brother’s ghostly reflection materializes in the double paned doors.

“Good God, you scared the hell out of me,” Sansa says with a shaky breath when she turns around in her chair, but it’s another shock she gets to see that her shirtless brother, her _sixteen year old_ _brother_ has tattoos all up and down his arms. “Rickon what on _earth,_ ” she says, and he looks at her in sleepy-teenager confusion, a surly tousled expression on his face before looking down.

“So what, I’m in pajamas. It’s the weekend, get over it,” he says, puberty-deepened voice froggy from sleep, and now she is equal parts irritated with him and intrigued.

“How do you have tattoos, Ric, you’re just a kid,” she says, and he opens the refrigerator door, staring inside before grabbing the orange juice, and he stands in front of the open fridge, looking at her with a squint as he chugs the juice right out of the container, and Sansa wrinkles her nose and rolls her eyes. He reminds her of Sandor somewhat, unapologetic, shirtless, inked up and grumpy. Suddenly it makes her smile.

“ _You’re_ a kid,” he says with the utmost maturity, wiping his mouth on his arm before returning the juice to the fridge. “It’s no big deal. I know someone,” he says, and now her curiosity is piqued. She asks when he got them – _this year –_ and she asks if mom and dad know – _dad found out and made me clean out the basement, but mom would kill me so no –_ and if they hurt – _duh, Sansa, it’s a fucking needle –_ and then he regards her coolly, sitting back in his chair and away from the plate of nachos he’s made himself.

“Why do you care so much? You thinking about getting ink done?” Sansa pauses, chewing her lip, because it has been something that’s been on her mind, or rather on the periphery of her thoughts, playing hide and seek with her consciousness, a pop up here, a sneaky wave there, but never hanging around long enough to examine until now, here in this slow-as-honey passage of time.

“So what if I am?” she says loftily, sipping the tea she brewed as he recounted all the artwork on his skin. Rickon laughs, a sharp peal of sound that makes her smile as much as it makes her defensive.

“Sweet old San Fran, dating her boss and getting tattoos,” he says, and he yelps when she whacks him. “What, Arya told me,” he says, still chuckling with a shake of his head. “Hey man, I’m not judging, I think it’s badass,” and she sighs deeply before launching into the explanations of the relationship that apparently Arya left out in order to make it more sensational. To his credit her baby brother listens to her, nodding appreciatively here and there and finally he leans forward again to attack his nachos.

“Well,” he says around a mouthful of chips and cheese, “like I said, I know someone. If you’re serious, really serious now and _don’t_ lie, then I’ll take you to her. But only because you don’t live here and won’t get her in trouble,” he says, and there is something fierce in his voice, something protective and warm, and again she thinks of Sandor, of how he is with Genna and with her, and Sansa grins.

“She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she? This tattoo artist of yours, she’s the mystery girl, isn’t she?”

Rickon tries to look ferocious and menacing at her prying but he can’t hide that grin, can’t hide the blush that creeps up into his cheeks and he looks proud of himself, chewing his food and nodding before he swallows his bite and launches into the subject. She asks as many questions as she can, finds out her name is Shireen and that he met her downtown one night and they were immediately attracted to each other. She learns that Shireen won’t tattoo Rickon at the shop unless it’s closed and won’t accept money, to keep it as far on this side of legal as possible, though he does take her to dinner to pay her back. He goes on and on about her skills, says she’s super talented, has full sleeves of ink herself and half a shaved head. She sounds terrifying to Sansa, but then again, she’s fallen in love with Sandor, and he can scare the shit out of nearly everyone except for a four year old girl, _So what do I know, anymore?_

“Where did you meet her? School? Do they even let kids – I mean, people,” she corrects, because Sandor stung her with the age crack and she doesn’t want to do the same to her brother. “Are people your age able to do this for a job? I mean you can’t even legally get one.”

“Ah,” he says with a clearing of his throat, leaning back in his chair again. “About that.”

She gets dressed soon after, Rickon suggesting what to wear when she explains the tattoo she wants, and she’s standing there in her underwear when Sandor texts her, and she laughs because it is as if he knew she was nearly  naked, because all the text says is _Send me a picture. Something sexy._ She asks him where he is and he tells her Hops and Vines, and they banter back and forth about sexy photos not being appropriate in such a setting, not when Genna is there playing with the cat, but she can hear Rickon playing video games in his room and there is clearly no hurry, so Sansa texts back _Fine, how about a LBD pic_ and Sandor asks what the fuck a LBD is, but when she wiggles into the raciest dress she brought with her and sends him the picture, all he sends back is _….you killed me, little bird_.

She’s dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a loose top by the time she jogs downstairs to wait for her brother, pestering Sandor for a photo of himself so she can show Arya later, and when he finally sends one, he looks as frank and unamused as he always does, and where it might repel a different woman it only serves to pull her heartstrings, a pluck and a strum that have her grinning like a fool by the time Rickon bounds down the stairs, leaping from the fifth step to the hallway floor beside her. She tucks away her phone when Ric hitches up his jeans and pushes the beanie back on his head, and for the first time since she arrived he’s not wearing a long sleeved shirt, and she grins because he clearly wants to show off his girlfriend’s work. _His twenty year old girlfriend,_ she thinks, wondering how Rickon has the time and energy to always go so vigorously against the grain, and then it’s thoughts of Sandor in the greenhouse, Sandor in the wine room, Sandor-Sandor-Sandor, and _Who cares? Who cares anymore?_ She’s grinning again when Rickon looks at her, and he grins back, likely thinking she’s excited about tattoos, doesn’t realize her thoughts are so wound around the man of her literal dreams.

“All right, San Fran, you ready to get scrawled on?”

The parlor Shireen works at is tucked between a lingerie boutique and a hair salon in downtown Spokane, and she feels silly for thinking so but Sansa thinks a trip to a tattoo parlor is something better reserved for after dark, not for a bright summer afternoon with birds chirping in the trees that shade the sidewalk.

“Shit, wait a second,” Rickon says, pinning the parlor door shut with a hand pressed carelessly against the streak-free glass. He sighs, chewing his lip as he looks down at his feet before he lifts his bright blue gaze to Sansa. “Look, there’s um, she’s got these uh, these scars on her face, okay? Not like, you know, knife fight scars or anything, just shit from when she was a kid, she had chicken pox real bad and they’re sort of all over the left side of her face. So don’t laugh at her, and don’t stare, all right? I uh, you know. I really like her. Like, a lot. Like, a _lot_ a lot, okay?”

Sansa laughs and he immediately gets defensive, his hand leaving a smudge on the glass when he drops it to stand to his full height and look down at her, but then she shakes her head at him and pulls her phone out of her purse.

“Here, dummy. I’m not laughing at your girlfriend, I’m laughing because _this_ is the guy I’m in love with, and this is why you have nothing to worry about,” and he whistles when she pulls up Sandor’s selfie, using his fingers to zoom in on the scars, and then he nods his approval.

“That guy looks like a badass,” he says, and Sansa grins, oddly pleased with his appraisal, and she says _That is because he is,_ and then Rickon is escorting her inside to meet his tattoo artist girlfriend. It’s a big fat square of a room with a front desk that looks like something her mother would sit at to pay bills or grade papers, and a row of old fashioned arcade games on the left wall.  The other walls are covered in tattoo designs, anything from Japanese symbols to cartoon animals, from words in scrolling script to flowers and butterflies. But Sansa’s favorites are the photographs on the wall behind the desk; some of them look like water colors, others look like actual portraits of people like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, and before she can help it she says _Wow_ under her breath.

“She’s fucking amazing, man. I’m telling you,” he says. “Shir,” he calls out, and if she expected swagger from him in front of this grown woman he somehow managed to land as his girlfriend then she is left wanting, because he’s hands in his pockets and shoulder blades out as he lowers his head when she walks out from the backroom, peeling off a pair of plastic gloves before tossing them in the trash can by the front counter. Shireen beams at him, and Sansa’s heart does a curious flip when they kiss, when the petite woman reaches up to wrap her arms around her little brother’s neck, and they are so familiar with each other, so clearly enamored despite the age difference that it makes the ache of missing Sandor all the more acute.

Shireen is just as he described her, her bare arms full of every color under the sun, huge orange koi fish swirling around each other on one arm in a sea of a blue and green, a stag on the other amidst a myriad of other designs and colors. Her black hair is indeed shaved on the side but it’s somehow cute rather than off-putting, and she has a bright smile when Rickon murmurs that he’s brought his sister in for some work, holds her hand out for a cheerful little handshake.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she says, and she’s _pretty_ , blue eyes dark yet merry, and whether it’s because she’s grown used to such things as scars because of her time with Sandor or because Shireen has that strong a personality and that vivid a charm, Sansa can only see the deep and wicked pockmarks on her face for a moment before they’re gone. But then again, there’s a lot going on when it comes to Shireen’s appearance, and she wonders if that’s part of it, remembering how Sandor told her at least he can choose the ink, if not the receiving of scars.

They chat for a few moments, and Sansa makes a point to ignore how Rickon eventually reaches out to stick his hand in the pocket of Shireen’s black hoodie, and then finally they get to the discussion of what Sansa wants, and she describes it as best she can, doing a crude sketch but explaining with a blush that her art is no good. They wait forty five minutes for Shireen to draw it out, Rickon standing outside smoking and texting on his phone as Sansa walks around and around the front room, gazing at the pictures and photos on the wall, but when Shireen stands up and walks over, her head tipped to the side as she asks if this is what she wanted, Sansa can’t hold back the grin because it’s perfect. It’s similar but different than what she wanted, and she likes that, _loves_ that, and when Shireen asks where she wants it, because it’s a _big_ piece, Sansa lifts her shirt without hesitation, and gestures to her right side, from sports bra to waistband.

“Here. I want the tree right here.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [picset!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104686067533/kiss-the-girl-chapter-20-feels)
> 
> [picset 2!](http://vanillacoconuts.tumblr.com/post/104692712968/jillypups-bex-morealli)

“Wait in the truck, okay? You can unbuckle yourself but just wait here,” Sandor says when he rolls down the front windows and kills the engine, and the cab of the truck is filled with the smell of Margie’s roses. Genna immediately unclicks her seatbelt to clamber into the front seat, her hair riding the wave of a gusty breeze. “And no honking the horn. You scared the shi- you scared the cra- you scared the horses half to death last time,” he finally says, and she immediately lifts the lid to the center console to rummage through pens, phone chargers and screwdrivers to find his roll of mints.

He grabs his pruning shears from the backseat and gets out of the truck with a slam of the door, and while he hoped for privacy while stealing flowers from Margie’s garden he supposes he can’t be surprised to see them considering they’ve decided to get married in September, only a short three months away. It will be a wedding outside, here in their yard. They are clearing away the various debris from the side of the stable, old wood pallets and the half rotted planks he and Bronn tore off the side of Nugget’s stall so they could replace them, a banged up old bookcase and the rest of the old mismatched chairs Sandor picked through before hauling three of them up to his house. They’re tossing it all in the back of Bronn’s rust red pickup, and he thinks they’ll likely have another bonfire before the wedding.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to Tucson right now?” Margie says with an uncharacteristic grunt as she flings a chair into the truck bed, and she dusts her hands off with a brush of her palms to each other before planting them on her hips with a smile. She’s been nothing but butter and honey to him since she watched him get his tattoo amended, taking occasional  photographs but ever silent, and the car ride back to Sonoita was so full of glances in his direction that he finally snapped _Goddammit, Margie, keep your fucking eyes on the road._ And it’s with that selfsame sweetness that she’s looking at him now, and he’d  bark at her like he did before if it weren’t for Sansa coming back – coming _home –_ and if it weren’t for the way Bronn’s looking at her, lit up with love in such a way that he hasn’t seen since their beginning.

“I wanted to uh, you know,” he says, holding up his shears with a click of the blades, and Bronn grins. “Yeah, yeah, shut up about it,” Sandor mutters, turning to cross the driveway towards the bushes in their front yard, and Bronn says _I could use a break_ , and then they’re all three of them standing there in the riot of color and scent that is her garden, Margie with her iced tea and Bronn with his Gatorade, the sun beating down on them though it looks like rain’s on its way, with the fat gray clouds looming on the southern horizon.

“Which color do you want,” Margie asks, eyes downcast as she runs a finger along the outermost petals of a bright orange bud, but then she lifts her gaze to Sandor with a smile. “Pink? Red? _Dark_ red?”

“The lavender,” he says at once, gesturing towards the shrub with the glass of water Margie brought him, because not that long ago he watched Sansa roll the stem in her fingers for a week, caught her inhaling its perfume with her bedroom door open, watched her run the petals along the plane of her cheek. She loved it, and he wants her to be just as delighted with this one.

“Ah, good choice,” Margie says, handing him her iced tea in exchange for the shears, and she turns away from them to pore over the bush of dusky lilac colored roses. “Do you know what that color represents, Sandor? You know so much about plants, but I wonder how much you know about roses,” and Bronn raises his eyebrows before chugging the rest of his Gatorade and shoving the empty bottle in his back pocket.

“No, I don’t,” he says slowly, watching with amusement as Bronn lifts a finger to his lips before taking out his pocket knife and cutting off the stem of a particularly beautiful orange rose. Bronn steps over to Margie, his chest perpendicular to her left side, head bowed and eyes on her profile as he lightly rests the side of the full bloom on her bare shoulder, and Sandor watches as Margie freezes, the shears an open-bladed hover above a rose, but she does not look up, does not move, though there is a slow slide of a smile that transforms Bronn’s goofy face into a look of pure bliss.

Sandor smirks as he lightly, gently and with painstaking slowness drags the rose down her arm to the crook of her elbow, and it is a display of love and want that he cannot turn away from, no matter how instantly intimate this moment has become.  Bronn lifts the flower to his nose in order to smell it as he smiles down at her. Margie breathes out a sigh, dropping the shears before even clipping off a stem, and she turns to her fiancé with a look of almost painful adoration. Sandor wonders if he should look away, but before he can clear his throat or offer to cut the rose himself, Margie’s got her arms around Bronn’s waist, and he grins as he cups her face, his thumb a brush against her cheekbone.

“You remember?” She is breathless wonder and parted lips, an upturned face lit up by the sun. Bronn nods, tapping her mouth with the rose before he winds his arm around her, the freshly cut flower an afterthought in the hand that is now pressed to her lower back.

“Honey, how could I ever forget?” he murmurs. Bronn moves his hand from her cheek to snag her chin with his thumb and forefinger, and he pulls her in for a kiss, and then Sandor sighs, squatting down to pick up the shears. He finds the loveliest lavender rose there is on the entire bush, taking his time even when Genna starts blaring the horn until he can hear Stranger scream his piercing whinny, and when he glances at them the lovebirds are still locked in a tight embrace, but then Bronn opens his eyes and looks up at Sandor, and he gives him a thumbs up that Sandor cannot help but chuckle at, and he nods at him before walking out of the enclosed yard, setting his glass of water on the low brick wall.

“All right, kiddo,” he says, carefully resting the long stem on the dashboard before wrangling Genna back into her booster seat. “Let’s go get Sansa, huh?” and he laughs outright when she shrieks _SANSA YAY_ because it’s a perfect summation of how _he_ feels as well.

He feels stupid, standing there with a rose like some young lovesick fool, but then his kid’s holding a sign that says GENNA in the same scrawl he’s got tattooed into his chest, and then he thinks of the bird on his ribs, perched by Drogo’s delicate hand on a branch of the tree on his side. Sandor’s heartbeat is a steady thud that quickens with each tick of the minute hand on the clock above the escalator, that same escalator on which he first saw her.

“When, daddy? I miss Sansa and I want her back now,” Genna says with a huff, and Sandor snorts.

“Soon, sugar, soon,” and then there are boots and a pair of legs, the hem of a sundress, the slouch of that old sweater she loves so well, and the peaches and cream of her skin, and before he even sees her face he knows it’s her.

Sansa is hair the length and color of a sweet, long sunset, a burnished contrast to the pale blue dress she’s in, and he says _Fucking Christ_ under his breath before he can help himself because when her eyes do a quick scan over the small crowd and land on him, there is that sizzle of electricity between them. He hears her says _Sandor_ before she breaks out into a run, and there’s this curious broken record running in his head that just says _Sansa Sansa Sansa._ She’s a burst of warm skin and the smell of her shampoo in his arms, the drape of well-worn sweater and the swing of her legs up around his hips, her boots hooked by the ankle against his ass, and _She’s home, she’s back home with me finally._

“I’m an asshole,” he says before she kisses him, and Sandor holds her to him with an arm around her waist and a hand pressed to the back of her head. “I’m an asshole and I’m sorry, Sansa.”

“I am too,” she says against his mouth, her fingers a tight squeeze on the back of his neck, and Sandor thinks her cheeks might be wet with tears when he kisses her face, but he still can’t help but laugh at her words.

“You’re not an asshole, Sansa,” he says as she unlocks her legs and slides down the length of his front to stand on her own two feet before him, her dress a snare against his jeans that they both push down, fingers brushing, and she’s a blush and a grin when she looks up at him. Her cheeks shine with the tears he felt, the tears he tasted, and he licks his lips to feel them, to accept whatever it is she wants to give him.

“Well,” she says with a smile and a crouch down as Genna launches herself at her, “I kind of acted like one,” she admits, and he grins when she stands up again, drags her in to his chest with an arm across her shoulder blades, kissing her soundly as Genna runs in circles around their legs.

“I guess we have more in common than I thought,” he says, and her eyes drop from his to the rose he lifts up, and she gasps and sighs, her chest a rise and fall as she takes with her fingertips the stem of it and brings it to her nose. Sansa breathes it in and then runs the petals across her mouth, and Sandor fingers itch from the desire to skim along her chest beneath the fabric of her dress, to run that rose along every part of her body that he can’t see. But Genna is here and they’re in an airport so he cannot do the things he wants, not yet, anyhow, but that doesn’t keep the burn out of her blue eyes when she lifts her gaze back up to his.

“Take me home,” she whispers as she presses herself against him, face tipped up to his, and with Genna clinging to his leg and Sansa looking at him with such heat, Sandor feels like he’s home already. “Take me home, Sandor, _please._ ”

 

He is all hot eyes and burning touches, from the way he pushes her sweater off her shoulder in the car to the way he drops his hand to her thigh as they fly down the interstate, and she cannot help but part her legs when he slides his hand up so far he can tuck his fingers inside the mint green lace of her panties, and his touch is warm, callous-rough but nonetheless pleasurable for it.

“Sandor, stop it,” she whispers to the passenger side window where the sun has already set, the sudden squeeze of her thighs around his hand only egging him on, and then his first two fingers find their way inside her, and Sansa sucks in a breath and pushes the back of her skull against the headrest. “Sandor, _Genna,_ ” she says, but he grins when she looks at him.

“She’s asleep, Sansa,” he says, and a quick glance behind her proves his words to be true, and she stares at his profile that is illuminated with the passing of each car on the other side of the interstate. “Be very, _very_ quiet,” he says, and two weeks’ worth of wanting him and not having him draw up her body and through her veins, from her toes to the very center of her when he begins to move his hand. She arches her spine, the seatbelt a flat press across her chest when she does so, and her fingers dig into the edge of her seat. Sandor hums with each pull and stroke and rub of his fingers, with those deep dips inside her and the subsequent swab of his fingertips to that sweet-spice-burn.

“Careful, baby,” he says when she whimpers, when she breathes so hard she whines, but while he warns her of her noises he still works into her, and the flare of headlights as cars pass them by is something she will not ever forget, not with Sandor’s hand inside her, not with the way she pulses around his fingers until he is the one grunting through a clenched jaw, with how he stares ahead at the road even though his hand never stops moving, never stops moving, never stops moving.

Her legs are trembling like a fawn’s when they’re finally home, when Sandor gives her a look as dangerous and sweet as dark chocolate, thick and heavy, and he tells her to wait in the car while he transfers a sacked out Genna from her booster seat to her bed. Sansa sits there in the pitch black of a Sonoita summer night, turned in her seat to let her feet hang out of her open car door, the rumble of thunder not far off. It makes her think of him and the greenhouse, makes her think about life and love and thirst and hunger, and the rolling of thunder, the spike and spark of lightning are like the living, breathing feelings inside her.

“Sandor,” she says when he jogs out of the house through the open front door, boots crunching down the gravel of the driveway when he comes to her, and it’s the sweetest desperation when he ducks his head inside the truck to kiss her where she still sits in the cab, her thighs on either side of his when he leans into the car over her, the console a press against her back. He kisses her and kisses her, tongue and teeth, suck and bite, and she wraps her legs and arms around him because that’s what they were _designed_ for. They were made for holding him and loving him, these sorry lonely limbs of hers, and though her tattoo is smooth and happy there is the slightest tug of freshly healed skin when she’s eventually back up in his arms, a tug that reminds her of _everything_.

He carries her into the house and Sansa pushes the door shut with an outstretched hand behind her, the rose safely clutched in her other, says _It can wait_ when he asks about her bag in the bed of his truck, and then he stops on his way to his room, the only place she wants to be except maybe the greenhouse, but then there’s another crack of thunder and the abrupt pelt of rain on the roof overhead. Suddenly Sansa likes it just fine here, and she tightens the grip of her muscles around his waist.

“Hey,” he says, pulling his head back when she goes in for a kiss, and she draws back as well to regard him. Sandor looks serious but like a boy all at once, his eyes a pierce of gray that makes her think of rainwater and thunder, and she smiles at him to think of this pair of eyes challenging the monsoon that has started to rage outside. It’s something she can see him doing, and half of her thinks he could succeed, he is that powerful.

“Hey, what,” she murmurs, relief sweeping to and fro over her heart like a broom to the floor, because they’re together again, because she’s in his arms again, and the clutter of doubt and sorrow are brushed away.

“Move in with me,” he says, and it makes her laugh, even as she pulls out his hair tie, working it singlehandedly onto her wrist.

“I’ve only been gone two weeks, baby. I _live_ here, I’ve already moved in,” but he shakes his head as he walks them down the hall.

“Move in with _me_ , Sansa. I’m sick of my bed just being mine, so make it yours too. Bring in your books and your soft colors, drag in your comforter and shiny lamp, leave your clothes all over the floor and the smell of your hair in my sheets. Move in, all the way.” It’s been two weeks away from him, two weeks of misery and the kind of discomfort she felt as a kid with growing pains, legs kicking in the middle of the night though this time it was for the lack of him that she tossed and turned. Sansa laughs and he shushes her with a kiss, and she nods her acceptance of his offer, kissing him before he walks them back to his – _their_ – room.

“Yes. Yes,” she whispers as he carries her past her old bedroom that will get turned back into an office or something else, the room that will never be hers again because she’s got a finer place to sleep now.

It’s _different_ but still the same here; it only takes a single glance around to find the culprits, nine photographs framed and hung up over his headboard, and only one of them is familiar, the center picture of him carrying Genna down the length of the airport. The others, though, _the others,_ she thinks. There is a photograph of her and Sandor standing in the greenhouse, his bulk and frame a near press against her, the egg yolk light above them softening the small space they occupy. There is a picture of Sandor sitting at a table in Hops and Vines while she stands, grinning down at him. There’s a picture of Sansa clinging to Sandor as they ride on a four wheeler, a picture of Sansa sitting on Bronn’s tailgate with her eyes closed mid-laugh, one of her sitting with Genna, a shot of Bronn and Sandor digging up dirt, one of Sandor and Sansa, lit up by a bonfire, lounging back to chest in the bed of his truck and another from the same night, with Genna asleep in Sandor’s lap and Sansa with her head tipped to rest against his shoulder, and then the picture of their kiss at Hops and Vines, her legs around him, the only parts of her visible being her legs and her arms, a windswept flare of her auburn hair.

“You took pictures,” she says when Sandor loosens his arms around her and lets her slide down to his feet, and she kicks off her boots without a second thought, takes off her socks and crawls onto his bed, standing up so she can inspect the photographs up close and personal, bare feet to his comforter as she stands there, a lavender rose in her hand. _All these gifts, all these surprises, all for me._

“I had them framed, yeah, but you know who took those,” he says and she does. It’s Margie’s handiwork without a doubt, here with her innate ability to capture emotion from across a yard at night, to snare hidden things that people tend to reveal in the most innocent of moments.

“They’re beautiful,” she murmurs, and she says _Sandor, stop it_ when he tells her they’re beautiful only because she’s in them, and he comes to stand by the edge of the bed when she walks towards him, bends his neck to rest his forehead against her belly, and she runs her fingers through his hair, his arms a wrap around her hips until they loosen and he runs his hands down the sides of her legs until they drag past the hem of her dress. Then it’s like two traces of fire to feel his palms on her skin, and they slide swiftly up her thighs past her hips, pulling taut the fabric of her dress as if it will tear from how her heart swells and hunger for him rises. Unknowingly Sandor reaches up and moves his hand over the tree etched into her skin, and Sansa smiles, bringing the rose up so she can smell once more its rich scent.

“I’ve got a picture for you too, you know,” she says, and he kisses her stomach through her dress, says _Show me, baby,_ and when she says “What’s the magic word?” he looks up at her, hands leaving cold spots on her sides when they leave her body to reach up and pull the sweater off her shoulders, because they both know what that challenge is really asking for, and the rain drums on overhead as skates his hands down her bare arms until he has the rose in his own hand, and she closes her eyes when he runs it up one of her legs, the petals a soft drag against her skin, and it’s up, up, up between her thighs until he runs out of leg.

“Please, Sansa. Please.”

 

She tells him she has a picture for him, and when she instructs him to take off her dress he obeys her but it’s with a mixture of sexual arousal and confusion, and just before the dress drops to the bed around her feet he wonders for a wild minute if she’s got a photograph taped to her stomach, but then Sandor sucks in a breath to see the tattoo on her right side. He is face to face with it, and it seems to grow and move when she shivers under his light touch. It’s brand new, has to be, and his overlarge hands are as careful as they can be when he traces a snake of root up the trunk to where it twists and twines into a naked bough. It’s like his but different and it makes him think of how solitary he was, a lone oak standing next to a dried out wash, but now there are two, there are _two_ of them, Sansa and him, and he kisses her tattoo, her hands in his hair holding him to her in his worship, and Sandor knows now he will never be alone again in his life.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, huffing a laugh when she tells him it’s because _he_ is there, that’s a tattoo of him. “But damn, little bird, it must have hurt,” he says, sorry to think of her wincing with eyes squeezed shut as this was needled into her skin, but she tells him nothing could hurt so much as being away from him, and it’s not long before she’s got his shirt off, before they are naked together between the sheets with the rain and thunder all around them. He has the tree to gaze at when she rises up and grabs the headboard above him, he has the roll of her hips beneath his hands as she moves so slowly that he thinks his mind will snap in two. He is so deep inside her it makes his hips lift, makes her moan and her back arch, and if he’s going to come it’s going to be with that mouth of hers on his, so he sits up in the circle of her arms, a fist in her hair to pull her in to him, a hand between her legs to make sure she comes before he does. When she moves her body faster against his thumb and his cock, when one hand leaves the headboard to claw at his shoulder, when she pants out his name against his lips and his teeth Sandor lets go, the sudden rush of orgasm knocking him senseless, but he is still able to say _I love you_ , is still able to listen to her say it back and to understand it as the truest thing he’s ever heard.

She finds the little bird on his body right off the bat, when they are both lying side by side and breathless, when she lifts her head off his chest and scoots away to look at the tattoo of his tree, to compare the boughs of his to hers, and she gasps _Sandor_ before her fingers press it, run like paintbrushes across his skin, and he smiles to the ceiling when she kisses it.

“Is that me?” she asks, voice a throaty purr after all that heavy breathing, after all that hard work she did sitting astride his hips, good girl that she is. “Did you let me in, Sandor?” She is halfway to sitting up before he pulls her down to him, and she stretches out on top of his body, a full length press of Sansa, chest to toes down where their legs are a tangle, and Sandor kisses her with all he has left.

“Yes, I let you in and I don’t ever want you to leave,” he says, and she tells him she’s not going anywhere, and before long she’s gotten her way and has him on top of her, has him hard again for her, and their room is full of sighs and whimpers, full of breathless declarations and _Please, yes_ and _Oh, God, little bird._ It is rain on the windows and a lavender rose on the pillow beside them, it is home for the two of them, and they move with the confidence only love provides.  


	21. Epilogue: Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/104981471083/kiss-the-girl-chapter-21-feels)

September 24th

 

 “Come on Margie, get out of there and at least kiss me goodbye before I go,” Bronn says, rapping his knuckles repeatedly on the door that has been closed in his face for the first time since they moved in together twelve years ago. No fight, no heartbreak, no wounded feelings have ever put up a wall between them in all that time, and now here he is standing in one of the only pairs of dress slacks he owns, a button down shirt and an undone tie, leaning against the doorway to their bedroom only to be denied entry. “Come on, girly, let me in, let me see you one last time.”

“No way, buddy. It’s midnight now and officially our wedding day, and it’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony,” she says, words ending on a whimper and an _Ow, dammit,_ her voice slightly muffled, and then there is a relieved sigh and the  _whump_  of fabric as it hits the floor. Bronn grins to imagine her standing there after shimmying out of that tight sparkly dress she wore to the rehearsal dinner that night, and he rubs his chin with closed eyes. “You don’t want bad luck for our wedding, do you?” Behind his closed lids he thinks of her walking to the closet to hang the dress in nothing but panties and a bra, and then he can hear hangers sliding to and fro on the clothes bar. He lets his head thump back against the doorframe as he imagines her, sees her with his mind’s eye take off the bra before putting on one of those lacy nightie things that barely covers her ass.

“I haven’t had an unlucky day since I met you, honey,” he says, and he smiles with a shake of his head as he hears a dresser drawer open because  _How well do I know this woman?_  The sigh of silk and lace on her skin as the nightgown drops onto her body, how she’ll pull her hair out from under the straps with a flip of her hands against her shoulders, how she takes her jewelry off last thing, as if she enjoys playing queen up to the last possible minute of the day. There is the chinkle of a necklace hitting the wood of her dresser. Bronn grins.

“Hmmph,” she says. He could kick himself for staying for that last drink with Renly at Hops & Vines, for letting Margie go on ahead back home with Olenna, because that one last glass of sparkling wine has robbed him of her, and now he’s officially banished to Sandor’s until tomorrow. She has packed his back and hung his suit up under plastic, and both wait for him by the front door.

“I came here to see you, don’t turn me away without  _anything_ ,” and he opens his eyes to gaze at the pictures all down the hall, and he thinks he lets her take too many of him because there are far fewer of her hanging around. He’ll never be a photographer, never be any good at it, but he vows to steal her camera and take more pictures of her so there are pictures of actual beauty instead of his ugly mug all over this house.

“It’s midnight, Bronny, and I’m sticking to my guns. Now go away so I can wash my face and get to bed,” and he thinks about ambushing her in the bathroom, wrapping his arms around her and tearing off that nightie, and now  _he’s_  the ambushed one, assaulted by the image of taking her against the counter. Bronn grumbles and mutters, pulls out his cell phone to try and get  _something_  on his side, but it tells him it’s past midnight as matter-of-factly as does his bride, so he heads into her office, a world of color and beautiful chaos, photos clipped up on clotheslines running back and forth from the northern and eastern walls, but the clock on the wall reads 12:02. He’s a hasty walk  to the den where he paces, cursing inwardly at how slowly the television turns on, but the Samsung finally flares to life and he’s staring at a rerun of Cheers as he pushes “info” on the remote, and now Bronn says  _Fuck_  because in  _this_ room it’s 12:04. The sense of time running away from him has his heart beating faster when he remembers once more source, because while he doesn’t believe in the superstition it’s important to him because it’s important to her. He is standing in the kitchen with a grin on his face, staring at the microwave which tells him it is only 11:57, and he never knew a kitchen appliance could have the heart of a romantic.  _Thanks, pal,_ he thinks before spinning on the heel of his still unbroken dress shoe to return to his post and vigil by their bedroom door. Bronn knocks again.

“Come out and kiss me quick, the microwave clock is slow so we’ve got three minutes,” he says, and she laughs, that selfsame chime that drove him crazy when he first met her. He hopes she laughs tomorrow instead of cries; he can handle her laughter but never her tears, and it makes him want to see her all the more desperately tonight, here where she’s still laughing and the main emotion running through the both of them is excitement.

“You’re just saying that to trick me,” she says slowly with a hint of skepticism and amusement, and he shakes his head even though she can’t see him.

“I’d never trick you, Margie, you know better than that. Now come on out and see for yourself,” he says, and there are several moments of silence coming from the bedroom, full and fat with hesitancy and in Bronn’s case, hope. He smiles when he hears the creak of their mattress.

“Close your eyes then, until I can see for myself,” she says. “Just to make sure,” she adds hastily, not wanting to doubt him, and he does as she bids him, telling her his peepers are shut, and then his is a world of darkness behind closed lids when the knob twists and the door cracks open. She’s a whisper that walks past him to look into the kitchen, but not two beats later she’s pressed against him, and Bronn keeps his eyes closed as she kisses him after saying they’ve only got two minutes left.

“There’s my girl,” he murmurs against her mouth, and he was  _right_ , it’s silk and lace and infuriatingly short, the nightgown she’s wearing, and it is nothing at all to run his hands up her sides beneath the gossamer weight of it. He earns himself a moan from her when he moves his hands to her back, sliding all the way up to her shoulders, pulling the gown up and over her breasts, and if his eyes weren’t still closed they would be rolling back in his head to feel her body through the thin cotton of his shirt. Margie is warm and soft beneath his hands, against his tongue, is love and familiarity, is everything he’s ever wanted, and the way her arms fit across his shoulders, the way her fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck is the same as it was all those years ago.

She breaks from the kiss and he’s got a hazy vision of her breasts, the nightgown bunched just above them as his eyes start to open, but then she claps a hand over his eyes, and once more he’s in a land of pitch black. “It’s midnight now, I can see the clock from here,” she whispers.

“I won’t open them,” he murmurs when she kisses him again with her hand small and firm across his eyes, and he finds himself getting more aroused than he was before, here in the dark with her body flush to his, and he lets one hand drop to the firm curve of her rump and the cotton that covers it. “I won’t open them, I swear, just lead me inside. Tie me up and blindfold me, I don’t care,” but then she’s laughing again, a soft, sweet thing that tells him she’s half considering it, or least  _wants_  to consider it.

“Nice try, babe,” she whispers, and he tries to bite the finger she used to trace his lower lip, “but tomorrow night’s going to be  _special_ , and trussing you up like a hog the night before isn’t going to make it any more so.” There is another kiss, a slow linger of her lips and the fleeting brush of the tip of her tongue before she’s gone, the heat of her body a retreating slide away from the sorry palms of his hands. The door clicks and the skin around his eyes and bridge of his nose feels all the colder for the sudden removal of her hand, his chest an empty, lonely place without her there.

“You’re stubborn as a mule, woman,” he mutters, adjusting himself with a wince and a grimace before turning to press his forehead and nose to the crack of light between door and jamb. Bronn sighs.

“You have that stubborn streak to thank for our relationship,” she says primly as he hears the bed creak once more, and he laughs because it’s true.

“See you tomorrow then, bride,” he says, and they say their  _I love yous_ through a closed door and invisible anticipation, through his frustrated amusement and his gritted teeth. Bronn turns to go get his suit and bag, imagining her sitting on the bed, one leg tucked beneath her and the other dangling to let her toes drift back and forth, back and forth, on the old rug they bought in Bisbee together, her fingers against her mouth to feel the kisses he left there for her.  _I’ll kiss her again tomorrow_ , he thinks as he locks the door behind him, draping his suit over his lap and slinging his bag over his shoulder as he sits astride the quad.  _I’ll kiss her again tomorrow when she’s good and mine and I won’t ever stop._

 

He’s still sound asleep though it’s long past dawn, and Sansa thinks they’ve got Bronn’s midnight arrival last night to thank for it, as the two of them stayed up another couple of hours or so, drinking beers in the living room. She could hear their muted conversation as she drifted in and out of sleep until he came back to bed after brushing his teeth and taking to Bronn the extra pillows and comforter that used to be hers. Sandor fell asleep curled around her, face buried in the hair at the back of her neck, but she wakes up with her cheek pressed against his chest, his face tipped towards her, his scars a play of light and shadow, mountain and valley, snake and coil, his arms flung above his head against the pillow.  _The sleep of a happy man,_  she thinks with a smile as she lifts her head and slowly rolls away from him to check her alarm clock; it’s already almost nine, a lazy-Sunday sort of hour in _this_ household, and she’s surprised Genna hasn’t yet come to pounce on them, surprised Lady hasn’t started her scratch and whine to be let out. But his daughter was up well past ten last night at the rehearsal dinner, wired from the attention bestowed upon the flower girl, from the pieces of cake Loras kept slipping her and the fact that apparently she had a coca cola for the first time in her life thanks to Jaime stinking Lannister.

“No,” comes a sleep gritted voice behind her as she half sits up to get out of bed, and with an _Eeee_ she is yanked back to the mattress. Sandor has rolled to his side once more, and his arm is a brace of muscle around her as he drags her to him, her back against his naked chest. “Not authorized,” he says, his voice a groggy grate of steel, but then there’s  _Mmm_  against her shoulder before he kisses her, the scruff of his beard a lovely rub that makes her smile.

“I have a feeling Bronn will need help getting up and getting ready, and that is something that falls under the responsibility of best man,” she says, but she makes no move to struggle, only lifts her head as he slides one arm beneath it, his bicep her new pillow now.

“He’s the one who kept  _me_  up late,” Sandor protests as she twists in his arms to face him, and the arm beneath her lifts to cradle her head to his chest where she inhales deeply. Crisp soap and sleep; sweat from the warmth under the covers that makes her think of sunlight and earth and all the things that make up his heart and his livelihood.

“Grump,” she says to the hair on his chest, unfolding one of her arms that is pinned between them to drape around him, and he’s a nuzzle against her forehead, the arm around her waist sliding down to her hip, his thumb plucking the elastic of her shorts like a guitar string before his whole hand grips her leg, and she’s got a moan waiting in the back of her throat when his fingers slide deep between her thighs until he squeezes her so hard she yelps in surprise and pain.

“Horse bite,” he says, and he barks a laugh when she slaps him soundly on the shoulder, rolls away chuckling with a hand to his abs as if holding back a belly laugh. She sits up and swats him again on the stomach and he _Oofs_ , body jackknifing slightly from the impact.

“I think I liked the first horse bite you gave me better,” she scowls, rubbing the back of her leg. He is still all laughter even when she glowers at him, even after there is the click of a bedroom door and Genna comes flying, attracted to the commotion like a butterfly to nectar with a five month old puppy galloping behind her.

“Daddy it’s my wedding, it’s my wedding, it’s my wedding today!” she shrieks as she takes a running leap for the bed, catching the corner of the mattress square in her chest though she is still an unstoppable scramble of arms and legs. He groans at her words as much as he groans at the belly flop she does on him, his black t-shirt a flop of jersey on his face that he has to brush off with a hand.

“Oh Christ, don’t _say_ that, Genner, give me twenty years first,” and Sansa can’t help but grin at his horror when she stretches over the side of the bed to pet Lady, who nips and licks her fingers as if she were made of honey. She is a loving bundle of fluff to all of them, and even though Sandor gave the puppy to Sansa, saying _Here’s one little lady for another_ , it’s Genna who bewitched her and now they live life as two wild young things together, and Lady refuses to sleep anywhere but Genna’s room.

“Hey, Genna,” Sansa says, leaning towards her with a conspiratorial air to where she lies on her daddy like a surfer on her board. “Do you know who’s sleeping on the sofa right now?”

“Loras?” she asks with wide, hopeful eyes, turning away from where she was yanking Sandor’s beard between his slow sleepy parries. “Is it Loras?”

“No, sugar, Loras is man of honor for Margie and is helping her get ready right now. But it’s someone  _almost_  as good as Loras. Why don’t you go find out and help him wake up?” Sansa sits back just in time before Genna’s head has a chance to crack into her chin, the little girl gets up so quickly, and it’s a stampede of bare feet and little puppy nails on concrete, a battle cry of  _WAKE UP WAKE UP IT’S MY WEDDING TODAY_  down the hallway. She looks to Sandor, still lying on his back with the covers up to his hips, and they are quiet a moment as they gaze at each other waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then there is another shriek and a great bellow, likely from a four year old to the groin, or to the gut if Bronn’s lucky, and at the mingled sound of giggles and G-rated ranting they both laugh.

“All right, fine, I’ll go help him,” Sandor says with a yawn before sitting up and swinging his legs over the bed, and a scratchy hum rumbles in his chest when she kneels behind him and kisses his back, something she’s taken to doing each morning he’s still in bed before work. He half turns his head when she rests her chin on his left shoulder to let her kiss his cheek like she wants, and then Sandor reaches up with the fingers of his left hand to hold the back of her head, turning in full now so he can kiss her mouth. “Death of me, little bird,” he murmurs before letting her go, and she watches him rise up to his feet.

“Are you excited to be best man?” she asks as he stretches the muscles of his back, though these days he has little enough reason to complain of soreness, considering how often he sidles up to her for a backrub, sitting on the floor in front of where she sits on the sofa, his head bowed and forearms resting on his bent knees like some great big creature who has finally been tamed. Though each time afterwards he’ll twist and pull her to the floor or sling her legs first onto his lap so he can show her his gratitude, and it is in those moments that the wild resurfaces in the television flicker of an otherwise dark house.

“Hmm,” he says, thinking it over because he is never flippant, is always truthful and seems to take his time with words even more these days and especially with her, ever since that fight of theirs before her trip home. Sansa finds she shows him the same courtesy now, trying harder to think before speaking, to wait for his words, and so she scoots back on the unmade bed until she’s resting against the headboard, automatically takes his pillow to hug to her chest as she waits. His right side is towards her as he crosses the room scratching his chest, and after three months she finds that his tree and his little bird – _Me,_ she thinks with a smile – still captivate her. His back is lit up with midmorning sun, skin looking all the more tanned for it, hair a dense glow of black, the tree standing between shadow and light on his ribs, and then he turns to her, the uninjured side of his face aglow, and she says _Oh_ before she can help herself and then he grins.

“You’re staring,” he says, folding his arms across his chest with false modesty, and Sansa lifts her chin a moment too late in an attempt at self-recovery.

“Yeah, well, _you’re_ showing off,” she says, matching his grin with one of her own. “Besides, I’m still waiting for your answer,” and she is all haughtiness until there is a shift in the way that he looks at her, wolfish and dark, and she presses her back to the headboard as if that could save her from his advancement. _I’m so happy he hasn’t lost the dark,_ she thinks with grin, because that’s what drew her in from the start.

“Answer what,” he gruffs, stalking towards the bed, knees on the mattress when he’s reached it, hands already on either side of her bent legs he is that long a stretch of man, and she’s pulled towards him with a half swallowed squeal in the back of her throat. Sandor grabs the pillow off of her chest and flings it to the floor before pinning one of her wrists to the mattress. “I seem to have forgotten everything,” he says to her collarbone, to her jaw, and she’s got her free hand in the length of his hair, knees pressed to his sides before she realizes it, it is that easy to slip into the world they make for themselves when they have even mere minutes alone together.

“Oh shit, sorry,” Bronn says from the doorway, and they are so used to being caught in flagrante delicto, in bathrooms at parties and in the cramped office of the nursery, out back at Hops & Vines and everywhere in between that Sandor just sighs as she tips her face to look at the doorway. Bronn is a rumpled boyish grin in yesterday’s pants and shirt, and somehow he managed to sleep with an undone tie still slung across his neck. “Anyways, I can’t find your coffee and Genna asked for Christmas for breakfast, and I have no idea how to respond to that. Morning, Sansa,” he grins with a wave, and she takes a hand out of Sandor’s hair to wave her fingers in reply, and then Sandor rises up to his knees after kissing her quickly.

“And to answer your question, I don’t know if excited is the word for it,” Sandor says to her with a smirk to her over his shoulder as he and Bronn leave the room.

“I don’t know, buddy,” the groom says as they disappear down the hall, “you looked pretty excited to me,” and she laughs up to the ceiling.

Sandor and Bronn break their fast on coffee and eggs, Sansa deftly swiping the cookies out of Genna’s hand before setting a bowl of cheerios before her, and she eats bacon off Sandor’s plate as she sits with her coffee and cream on the counter in front of him. Bronn is his usual self, open and easy, laid back and unhurried, but there is _something_ about him today, in the way he falls into silence as he looks at his food or gazes sightlessly into the kitchen, in the checking of the time and how he smiles at nothing in particular. It’s an undercurrent of something deep and true that rarely rises to the surface with his cavalier ways, but now it threatens to spill out and over and drown them all, and that makes her smile.

Bronn and Sandor are showered, dressed and out the door before Sansa even has her hair dried, let alone the flower girl’s, calling out _See you later, Sanny_ and _Love you, baby_ respectively, and she and Genna spend an hour giggling and singing as she paints first her nails and then Genna’s, as she applies her makeup and brushes out little girl curls until it’s a cascade of black, so like her uncle’s yet all the softer for her youth.

“Are you excited for the wedding, and to see your daddy in it too?” Sansa asks as she drops the fluff of merengue that is Genna’s dress over her outstretched arms and her head, turning her around by the shoulders so she can do up the satin buttons and tie the vivid, tropical orange sash around her little torso.

“Yes! I get to throw flowers,” she says proudly, swinging the still empty basket like a baseball bat. “But why aren’t you in it with us?” Sansa bites her lip as she perfects the bow, girlish fantasies building up like whipped cream on pie in her head: a white dress and Sandor in a suit, maybe a blue tie to match her eyes. She keeps them to herself, a sweet snack to devour at some midnight hour when she cannot sleep, and instead reminds Genna that there’s only a best man and a man of honor and a flower girl, that Bronn and Margie want to keep it small and simple.

“Will I be in _your_ wedding?” Genna asks as she turns around, and Sansa has to grab the basket with both hands to keep it from swinging right into her face. She smiles and rests her forehead against Genna’s.

“You know what, honey, I bet you will,” she says, getting to her feet after Genna’s little slippers are on. Sansa is already dressed in a fitted sky blue cocktail dress with a more modest overlay to wear during the ceremony, covered in embroidered flowers of all colors, and when they’re by the door, Genna tells her she looks like a bahllafly, and Sansa feels like the prettiest girl in the world for it. With a pat to Lady’s head and a double check on the food and water bowls, they are out the door when Sansa’s phone chimes.

 

 **Margie:** Freaking out right now, I have old and new and blue but nothing borrowed. Loras literally doesn’t even have a hanky to give me and my folks aren’t here and I need something, please help, Sanny!

 **Sansa:** Don’t worry, Margie. I have just the thing :)

 

Sansa sprints to her bedroom, smiling at the only thing she could imagine bringing to a bride on her wedding day, because it’s the only thing she has that is such a perfect symbol of love. Her fingers are as careful as birds building nests when she unwinds the length of ribbon from the long stem, and though she knows it’s dried out she cannot help but lift Sandor’s rose to her upper lip, and it’s either a phantom or her imagination, a ghost or a dream, but she swears she can smell it, and it’s just as heavenly as it was that day under the sun when he said that she was perfect.

 

“Oh my God, I am so glad you’re here,” she says when Sansa and Genna arrive, one a tall drift of blossom and color and auburn, the other a fluffy whirl of white dress and bouncing black hair, but her eyes widen when she looks from Sansa’s enigmatic smile down to what she’s cradling, ever so carefully in her hand. “Oh, no. No, no, no. No way am I taking that, that’s way too special.”

“You’re going to take it because you need it, and because I want you to. Because of this rose,” Sansa says with her cherry red lipstick and all that love in her eyes, holding up the flower, “because of _you_ and all your hard work, I’ve got him now. It’s only fitting, Margie. There’s nothing else of mine that will do. Not a bunch of jewelry from Target, or a beat up Kindle or an old sock stuffed in your boot,” and Sansa hugs her when tears spring to Margie’s eyes despite laughing at the idea of an old sock shoved in her boot.

“Thank you,” she whispers when they stand together in the kitchen, Genna already taking off her shoes so she can go jump on Bronn’s and her bed, and Sansa holds the stem like a skinny barbell in two hands so Margie can carefully, carefully cut the stem between her fists to make it fit inside her bouquet. She inhales sharply in an attempt to master her tears of gratitude, and then she smiles, mind wandering to a newer romance. “Did you know that a lavender rose symbolizes love at first sight?” Sansa’s eyes light up when Margie looks up from her careful task once it’s complete. She grins to see the sparkle there like miraculous lightning in a cloudless, summery sky. “Mmhmm. He chose it himself too. I offered him love and love at first _sight_ , and he chose it not once but twice, even without knowing. You had him from the minute he laid eyes on you, Sansa,” she says, and Sansa is a blush with wide eyes and red lips, a pale blue dress and black eyeliner, ever the girl and ever the vixen, and it’s no wonder Sandor is so besotted.  

“So what does an orange rose symbolize, then?” Sansa says, nodding towards Margie’s bouquet. She smiles, lifting the posy to her nose, and she is swept away by a thousand memories when she closes her eyes, the drift of a rose down her arm, the burn of brown eyes on a summer day long, long ago.

“Desire,” she says after a slowly stretched moment, and even though she opens her eyes and is in the kitchen there is still the sway of a breeze she feels in her curled and half-pinned hair, the beat of a hot sun on her shoulders, the tangible distance of just a few inches between them that seemed like the breadth of an ocean. She can feel youth and want in her bones as if it was yesterday, the wistfulness and pain, the overwhelming wash of relief. “Desire and enthusiasm. Passion,” she says with a murmur, before she sighs and the spell is broken, and when she looks up Sansa is gazing at her with such dreamy loveliness that she wonders if the redhead stole into her memories and dreams just then.

“Come on,” Margie says with a grin once the dried rose is safe in the middle of the orange sea of fresh blooms, “Loras is making mimosas in my office with Renly. I think we both deserve one, don’t you?”

“Well, want them, sure, but deserve them? What for?” Sansa grins, and she’s careful of Margie’s tied up train as she is tugged down the hall by the hand, and they glance in to see Genna trying to do snow angels on the bed before heading to where the hall bottoms out at her office door.

“For loving men, because it can be exhausting, no matter how much it’s worth it. Why do you think Renly and Loras are drinking together?” and they both laugh. They walk hand in hand to her office and then it’s a _Ohhh, the bride!_ Renly leaps out of her office chair to give the place of honor to the bride, her brother Loras kissing her forehead and handing her and Sansa a tall glass of bubbly. It’s a late morning of giggles and bawdy jokes, it’s Genna bursting in for a round of dinosaur chase with Loras, who informs her that the dinos are drinking right now, and then it’s Genna clutching in her hands a flute of OJ while everyone stares in mute and petrified shock as she pounds it without breaking the glass.

It’s Margie glancing out the window when no one notices, between the flower girl and the champagne, and she sees Bronn’s back as he helps everyone set up chairs for his own wedding. It’s the the stretch of his white shirt across his shoulders, the glint of sun off his hair and the way she can _feel_ him laugh even though she can’t hear it. And finally it’s sixteen years ago when she saw him the first time, hunched over on his mower at six o’clock on a Saturday morning, it’s the moment time stood still for her, that long, frozen moment between knowing nothing and knowing everything, because she knew her future in that moment. It took longer than she reckoned but she regrets none of it, and the only regret she has now is that she cannot march right out there and marry him this very moment.

 

 

“We need a Sansa and a Renly to kindly put down the booze and take their seats,” Sandor calls out as he walks in, still twisting his neck in the confines of his collar and tie, thinking that for the money he spent on the ensemble he should be allowed to unbutton and undo them both. “Both of you, for Chrissakes, come on,” he says, and while Renly jogs past with a slap to his shoulder, Sansa drifts out of the hallway into the living room. She’s warmed up with a drink or two and he can tell, but while it used to make him nervous that real feelings would be replaced with liquored up lies, it doesn’t anymore. He hasn’t had to worry about that in months, so when she walks into him and drapes an arm over his shoulder he does not complain, simply grins and runs his fingers down the underside of her upper arm, making her shiver.

“Hi,” she says, and she takes his breath away. Lipstick as red as a beating heart and a dress cut to kill, these are easy ways for ordinary men to die, but it’s the look in her eyes that does _him_ in, and even though he has been informed by priest and groom and grandmother and the fucking photographer to boot that it is time to start the wedding, Sandor takes his time here, because there is the press of hiswoman against him, a slow melt of _something_ in her gaze, and for the first time in his life he is somebody’s fool. _A perfect fool for a perfect woman._

“Hi,” he says.

“I know what a lavender rose means now,” Sansa says, stands up on the toes of her shitkickers and stretches her neck to press her cheek to his, and his hands find her hips, her low back, slip down to cup her ass before sliding back to her waist.

“Tell me,” he says, eyes sliding shut as he bows his head to hers. She is cowboy boots and perfume, is things he knows and things he cannot comprehend, is something he can hold in his hands and something that will be forever out of his grasp. He loves it that way.

“Love at first sight,” she sighs in his ear, and there is strange sort of communion in him, of thrill and surprise and skepticism with conviction and understanding and validation. “I should give you one too,” she says, her cheek a soft brush against his before she’s back down on her heels, gazing up at him. “Guess I have to go take my seat now,” and then she’s gone, and he’s left standing there with no breath in his body save the last that could maybe, _maybe_ sigh out her name, or at the very least, _Please_.

“You ready for me, big boy?” Loras says with a grin, and Sandor rolls his eyes despite the chuckle he allows himself to cover up his momentary dazedness.

“Go get your father, he’s in the stall with Nugget, and he’s going to make your sister smell like a goddamned horse if he’s in there any longer,” Sandor says, and Loras sighs with a snort of exasperation, because if Mace is anything, it’s easily distracted.

“Maybe somebody’s got Febreze,” Loras says before pushing through the screen door, and Sandor is left standing in this strange place that should only belong to friends and to love, but then he reminds himself of what the words _friend_ and _love_ mean, reminds himself of how it’s been to laugh at the TV with Sansa, to teach Genna how to write the alphabet, to clap Bronn over the back when they cured Renly’s apple trees two months ago. He’s got friends and he’s got love.

“So are you ready for me?” comes a voice he knows, though it has never sounded so thin before, and Sandor turns, hands in his pockets, to see Margie – _No, today she’s Margaery,_ he thinks – standing in the doorway to the front room, and he doesn’t understand women’s fashion but he knows what he sees now, a girl in a long white dress that she’s probably been thinking about since she was fourteen years old. He’s not a poet, not an artistic man, but he’s also not stupid, so he just says what’s on his mind.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, his voice rougher than the sweep of train and drape of veil deserve, and there is a lovely spill of blonde curls in the fanciest hairdo he’s ever seen on her and the riot of orange roses in her hand, save one in particular, and Sandor frowns in confusion to see it. “Is- is that, wait, no,” he starts, but she laughs.

“Don’t worry, Sandy, I’m only borrowing it,” she says, and he supposes he’ll let that horrific nickname slide on today of all days. “Thanks for calling me beautiful. I think it’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she says as she steps towards him, and he can hear Mace behind him grunting and grumbling _These things take time, so I was taking my time. Dammit, son, stop spraying me with cologne_ , but all Sandor can register is his friend lifting up on her toes to kiss his cheek through her veil and before he knows what he’s doing he’s lowering his head to receive it. It’s light and it’s sweet and it’s Margaery, it’s a friend he never realized he had until she was already such an integral part of his world he didn’t even understand the definition anymore.

“All right, now,” Sandor says roughly, clearing his throat and straightening as Mace shoves his way through the doorway, Loras in his wake as he dusts hay particles off his father’s shoulders before they both come to stand by Margaery. Their father wears a tremulous smile and Loras as big a one as Margaery does, though she’s _nervous;_ he can see it as clearly as he can spot a tree that needs water, a seed that needs soil. “Hey, hey, you,” he says to her, taking a step towards her with his head inclined as a way to make this a private conversation, and to their credit the other Tyrells look elsewhere, to the ceiling or out of the window. “You ready for this?”

“Is he, you think?” She has never, _never_ been anything but cheerful confidence in all the years Sandor has known her, but that little question undoes him a bit, and with only a brief moment’s hesitation, he rests a hand on her shoulder, feels the satin cap of her white gown. Sandor smiles.

“He has been ready since you yelled at him sixteen years ago, Margaery,” and when he turns away at the sound of instrumental guitar music that signals his cue, he has the image of a smile on her face he hasn’t seen since she was just a girl. Sandor heads out of the front door and crosses the driveway to where the aisle is, a path of rose petals on grass that’s still a vivid green from the monsoon season, though it will likely revert to its standard blonde in a week, and his eyes flick to where Sansa sits near the front, giving her a nod that she answers with a smile, and then he’s at Bronn’s side, their hands clasped in front of their belts in mirror image of each other.

“Is she coming?” he whispers, and it’s so strange to Sandor, seeing the two of them like this on this day of all days, but he has never so much been in a wedding let alone had a wedding of his own, so he suppresses the desire to roll his eyes at such a stupid question.

“Of course she is,” he whispers back. “She’s gorgeous and she’ll be here in a hot minute, so keep your shirt on, buddy,” and Bronn nods, clearing his throat and bracing his footing as if he expects a gale from a hurricane to come blowing down the aisle to knock him over, but after Loras and Genna make their way down the aisle, Genna chucking petals at the ground as if she held a grudge against it , after the song changes to Keith Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing at All” and everyone stands, after they see Mace and Margaery come drifting down towards them, petals at her feet and orange roses in her hands, Sandor thinks maybe it _will_ blow his best friend right over.

“Jesus,” Bronn whispers, and Sandor ducks his head to hide a smile, but he keeps his eyes on Margaery’s bright and shining face, on her million watt smile and the gust of laughter that leaves her when she is handed from Mace to Bronn, her father planting a watery kiss to her brow before sniffling his way back to the seat waiting for him between his wife and his mother.

“Honey, don’t cry,” and Sandor looks beside him, shocked to see that it is Bronn with tears in his eyes while Margaery’s are dry.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Bronn says quietly, hoarsely, clearing his throat before smiling. “I’m sorry, Margie,” and she shakes her head as the music quiets down, handing her bouquet to Loras behind her before sliding her hands into his.

“Worth it, Bronny,” she says. “Worth every second,” and as everyone sits and the priest begins the ceremony Sandor can’t help but lift his gaze to where Sansa is seated with Genna in her lap, to where she is blue eyes already waiting for him with that same electricity between them that has been there since the start, and his heart pounds because she’s been worth every second of the wait too, all thirty six years of it, and suddenly Sandor _knows_. He knows it’s time, knows it’s her, and he knows what he has to do.

 

“And by the power vested in my by God and by the love you two have for one another, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and just like that he is a husband, a married man deemed fit enough by their own vows and by the smile on her face to take care of her for all of his days, and it’s everything Bronn has inside him not to haul her up into his arms and simply walk away with her. He manages, however, to simply lift her veil in order to kiss her but then she’s an explosion of satiny white into his arms,  her hands in his hair as he lifts her up off of her shitkickers, and she kisses him with everything she’s got, and if Bronn knows anything it’s that she’s backed by the forces of the universe. She steals away his breath by the time the kiss breaks, amidst the whoops and the whistles and the applause of their friends and their family, and he takes a moment to gain it back when he sets her down again, cupping her face to kiss her once more.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Bronn and Margaery Tyrell,” the priest says, and if anyone is surprised that he decided to take her name instead of the other way around they make no note of it, only clap him on the shoulder as they walk back down the aisle hand in hand, Margie a grin and a laugh, a toss of hair and veil while he is a man with a new last name, a man with a wife and a mission more real than it’s ever been, to have her and hold her and never let her go.

 

It’s a riot of activity once the ceremony is over, and everyone is instructed to take their chair and line it up by the faded maroon barn so the tables can be brought out, but before Sansa has a chance to turn and grab her chair by its seat he is there at her side.

“Don’t you dare,” he murmurs, sweeping her hair to the side to kiss her neck, and she tilts into the affection, eyes closing against the brilliance of the afternoon and the mellow breezes on the air, hoping she’ll never forget the way his hands slide across her low back and her belly to hold her between them, or the flip and flit he summons from her heart. Sandor takes her chair in one hand and her hip with the other, and they follow the bounce and flounce of Genna as she scampers into the cheerful chaos of people and chairs, of flowers and swags of orange chiffon, of cowboy boots and freshly pressed Sunday dress.

“You look so handsome,” Sansa smiles, gazing up at him in his pale gray suit and rose boutonnière, his hair tied back more neatly and with more care than she’s ever seen before, and it makes her think of when she first laid eyes on him, all brawn and scowl and little girl on his shoulders, how Genna had tugged out locks of his hair so he looked as feral as he was back then.

“You’re stunning,” he says by way of reply, and she cannot help but beam at the compliment, “but I wish you weren’t wearing that damned lipstick. You look good enough to eat and I can’t even kiss you with that stuff on,” and Sansa laughs.

“It’s smudge proof, Sandor. Waterproof mascara and smudge proof lipstick are essential for wedding makeup,” she says sagely, and he drops her chair to the green grass by his feet before sweeping her against his chest so suddenly he surprises a little _Oh_ out of her.

“Ah, well, in that case,” he says, and she laughs as he hauls her up so high her head is above his, his arms a vise around her waist, and there is some romantic country song that starts playing but she can’t hear the words because Sandor is kissing her with such abandon here in front of everyone, here beneath the endless autumn sky, and she bends a knee and lifts a foot like they do in old movies because today is that kind of day, because he is that kind of man and she is that kind of lady.  

 

They eat a late lunch seated at four long rows of picnic tables, white tablecloths flapping and lifting in the lazy breezes, mason jars of orange and pink and white roses in regular intervals down the lengths of the tables, and there is so much laughter Margie can hardly hear the music. Her vision swims with happy tears to see so much color and happiness, as riotous from the flowers on the table and the roses in her garden as from the dresses and blouses and silk ties. She watches Sansa stuff a pistachio coated grape into Sandor’s mouth and laughs through her tears when Genna asks to be fed as well, and if it’s the last love match she ever makes she’ll be happy with it.

“My finest work,” she murmurs, and then Bronn come up from behind her, leans down over the back of her chair to kiss her cheek.

“What is, wife?” he says, and she closes her eyes as he kisses her again and again, down her jaw to behind her ear.

“I don’t know,” she says, and then she laughs because he fuddles her more than the champagne in her glass. She tells him as he braces his hands on the edges of her chair on either side of her thighs, chin resting on her left shoulder as they watch Sansa and Sandor kiss over their half-eaten plates, his hand at the back of her neck, her fingers rubbing the lapel of his jacket.

“They’re okay, I guess,” Bronn says, lifting his right hand from the seat of her chair to press his fingertips to her jaw, and with a light push he turns her head towards him. “But I think your finest work is what we’re celebrating right now,” and she sighs with a smile. _My husband is kissing me,_ she thinks, _because he is finally mine, all mine,_ and he moves to her left and sinks down to his knees in the grass, their kiss unbroken because she cups his face in her hands to keep him here with her. He loops his arms around her waist, his fingers firm against the satin and whalebone of her corseted dress, and it doesn’t even register that everyone is clapping because when he pulls away with a suck on her lower lip Bronn says _Let’s make a family tonight,_ and Margie sobs a laugh into his mouth, nodding vigorously as he kisses her again and again and again.

 

Sandor watches with narrowed eyes as Sansa spins around in the grass with Podrick to some stupid 80’s song, and it makes him think of Congress and how of all people she should be dancing with _him_ to this shit even though he has no idea how to.

“Am I honestly seeing this with my own eyes?” Renly says as he sinks with a sigh and a swig of his beer into the chair next to Sandor's. The tables are a messy push close to the stables to make room for dancing, crooked and off kilter, and they’re side by side in the deep V made by two tables, Sandor’s left elbow resting on one table and Renly’s right arm draped on the other. “Sandor Clegane, grumpiest man in Sonoita if not the _entire_ world, sitting here watching his girl dance with another man?”

“If that’s what you call a man,” he says, grunting with amusement when Renly laughs. It’s too pretty an evening to stir up much fuss about it, with the strands of lights overhead that cast a glow on the grass below and in the air around them until it seeps out and disappears in the black of night around this patch of earth. It feels close and secluded and warm, like they are in the smallest world, on the tiniest planet in the universe, a place of music and dancing and laughing, of champagne corks being popped every few minutes and the sound of Bronn making toast after toast after toast.

“I’m happy for you, man,” Renly says, and when he holds out his beer Sandor gives it a glance before tapping the neck of his IPA against Renly’s. “God knows it’s taken long enough for you to find her, huh,” and Sandor nods. The 80’s song dies down into a fade, and suddenly it’s “Forever and Ever Amen” by Randy Travis, and he drains his beer before setting it on the table.

“Yeah, it has,” Sandor says, because that reminds him, and he stands up, shrugging out of his suit jacket to drape it over his chair before rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows.

“Go get her,” Renly says, and he glances back to see the grin on his face. Sandor laughs and Renly lifts his beer again between them, and he bumps his fist against the cold brown bottle.

“I am,” and then he strides through the grass and the half-drunk people two stepping in a loose circuit around the lit up floor of grass, taps Pod on the shoulder and cuts in because with this song and under this sky and those lights, with his best friends laughing and kissing in the middle of it all, Sansa deserves to two step with someone who knows what he’s doing, with someone who’s got something on his mind. “Come here, sunshine,” he says, and she puts a hand on his bicep and a hand in the one he holds up, and with his right hand at the small of her back he starts to move them, and she dances _well,_ a smooth follow to his lead, as if in their life together it isn’t actually the reverse.

“Well, I never, Sandor,” she says, offering him an upturned smile after he spins her once, twice, before pulling her back to him, “you _do_ dance,” and he huffs a laugh against her hair when she rests her head against his shoulder before kissing the crown of her head.

“You don’t think Olenna Tyrell would do anything half assed, do you? Even teaching high school kids how to two step before their first formal dance?” and he laughs again, louder when she draws her head back to give him a sharp look of surprise.

“ _Granny_ taught you? Margie’s granny,” she says in disbelief, and he shrugs and says _Yep_ as he spins her again. She’s taken off that strange floral thing and is just red hair and lips, blue eyes and blue dress with a pair of fawn brown cowboy boots that do not trip her up as they dance.

“I want to meet your family,” he says when she’s back to him and against his chest, and she smiles up at him, a shy, coy, happy thing that makes him bow his head to kiss her.

“Really?” It’s a whisper he can barely make out over the music and the chatter and revelry ad he nods with a grin. “Oh my God, Sandor, I’ve wanted that for such a long time,” and her eyes glitter black in the low light as she shakes her hair back to look up at him. “I daydream about introducing you to them, about them meeting Genna,” she says.

“I want us to go to Spokane so I can meet your family and so they can meet mine,” he says, lifting his hand from the small of her back to hold her jaw in his palm, just to touch her, really. And of course by family he means Genna, but he also means that he wants them to meet Sansa, _his_ Sansa, to see her and get to know the way she fits into his life, his heart, _his family¸_ so they will see what she means to him, so they will understand him and how desperately he loves their sister, their daughter.

“I love you, Sandor,” she sighs later in the warm space beneath his body as they move together, sheets a forgotten and banished tangle on the floor at the foot of the bed, and he kisses her, sucks her tongue and groans when she bites his lower lip. Her words make him work harder for her, make him heat up like a stone under a desert sun.

“I know you do, baby,” he says, because it’s true, because he understands what that means and what that feels like, having soaked in its merit and its value since she first spoke those words to him, and now he sighs when her legs come up around him to wrap around his hips. “I love you too, Sansa. I love you, too.”


	22. Epilogue: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [picset!](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/105317461173/kiss-the-girl-ch-22-feels)

December 20th

“You’re nervous,” she says, glancing to him in the passenger seat of the car rental, the muted light of a snowy day at dusk casting him in whites and grays, leaching the color from everything, fuzzing out the gnarl of scars on his cheek so it looks almost smooth, and she finds she prefers the scars to this characterless blank canvas. She looks back to the road and the flurry of snow with a smile. Sansa has missed this sort of weather, and even Sandor seemed invigorated once they stepped out of the airport, rubbing his palms briskly together as he gazed up at the iron gray sky, though Genna shivered and said  _Furrrr, it’s too cold out here_  until Sandor picked her up and tucked her halfway inside his jacket.

“I’m not nervous,” he says, turning away to look out of his window at the landscape that’s as muted as the light in the car, all black asphalt driveways and snow covered lawns, the sooty green of evergreen and the wet brown of trees that lift their naked boughs to catch the falling snow. “Maybe  _you’re_  nervous,” he says churlishly, and Sansa rolls her eyes.

“Really, now,” she says with a smirk, and Sandor sighs with a scrub of his hand across his bearded chin, gives a low chuckle and a shake of his head as he apologizes.  _He is too perfect to doubt himself,_  she thinks with another furtive glance his way, the quilted blue plaid overcoat adding to his bulk, his beard all the thicker for the cold winter months. He is spectacular to her, inside and out.

“Yeah, I’m nervous. I’m not- I don’t- I’ve never been introduced to a woman’s folks before, but even I know I’m not boyfriend material.” He turns to look at her, a sliver of the normal side of his face visible when she glances from the road, and he’s confliction and doubt, something she hasn’t seen from him since they first came together. She looks back to the road and lifts a hand from the steering wheel to rest it on his knee and in an instant he covers it with his own.

“Considering the fact that you’re  _my_  boyfriend, I think that means you’re boyfriend material,” she says with a squeeze to his leg, and he snorts a laugh at that.

“You can honestly tell me you’re not worried about their reaction? A guy thirteen years older than you with a four year old and half a face?” he says, twisting in his seat to see if Genna’s still asleep, and Sansa can see in the rearview mirror that she is snoozing away, burrowed under Sandor’s black t-shirt with a stuffed bear wedged between her and the edge of the booster seat they brought from Arizona.

She thinks about it a moment and then she chuckles. “Well now, let’s see. Arya started dating Gendry when she was a junior in high school and he was a twenty three year old drop out working in a garage. Bran’s recently come out as gay with the guy everyone thought was just a buddy. Rickon has narrowly escaped going to juvie only to end up covered in tattoos and dating an older woman who is  _also_  covered in tattoos. Between older lovers and surprises in sexual orientation, I’d say we’re either par for the course or seriously overestimating ourselves,” and Sandor laughs genuinely at that, which in turns makes her grin.

“All right, all right,” he says, sitting back more comfortably in his seat as he moves his hand from the top of hers so he can take a hold of her thigh, fingers burying themselves under her leg, thumb rubbing affectionate circles into the denim of her jeans, and for the rest of the ride he peppers her with questions about her family that he already knows the answers to: if Robb is going to be there and about her father’s work, if Cat will go back to teaching and how Bran’s PT is going, what Rickon’s girlfriend’s name is and what color Arya’s hair is these days, if Gendry’s into muscle cars and how in the hell you spell Jojen.

In truth she’s  _excited_  to introduce him because it has felt strange, these past several months, having such an exquisite love that her family is unaware of. She told them, all of them at one point or another, over the phone or in emails or texts, how she feels and that they are together, but hearing about it isn’t the same as knowing. It isn’t seeing how he loves her, how he has lead her by the hand to her own happiness, it isn’t understanding that it’s a chance in a lifetime, that it’s being struck by the sweetest sort of lightning to say his name and know he’s all hers. And so she drives them to her family’s home with a content smile on her face, a merry little fire of love in her heart that crackles and snaps and burns all the brighter for its heat.

 

“Do you think it’s serious?” Cat says, her arms folded across her chest as she stands at one of the bay windows in the living room just off the hall, staring at the snowy sprawl of their front yard to the street below. It’s a fight not to check her watch again even though she knows it’s likely only been two minutes since she last drew back the cuff of her sweater and glanced down at it.

“We’ve never met a boyfriend yet, and she dated that Harry boy for two years,” Ned says, voice as calm as hers is anxious, and she twists away from the world of snowflakes and dusk outside to look at her husband, an unconcerned study of the newspaper he’s reading, ankle resting on his knee as his slippered foot bobs in time to the blues music Bran is blasting from the other room. She smiles, thinks he’s endured enough with Arya and Gendry in high school, and now Rickon with this Shireen woman, to be much bothered by this new whirlwind romance from his eldest daughter. Cat leaves the window to sit by him, curling her legs beneath her and before she even leans into him, without so much as a glance up from his paper, Ned lifts his arm to rest it on her shoulders, a wordless invitation that she accepts with a happy sigh as she settles in against his side.

“I know, and Whitworth is close enough to ride a bike to,” she says, and maybe that’s what has her so nervous. Sansa had two years to bring a boy home and only a five minute drive stopping her, but now she’s traveling over a thousand miles to bring this boy, this  _man_ , home to them, and while she had been sweetness and light over the phone asking if they could come, all three of them, for Christmas, there was also a steady confidence to it, a richness to her lilting girlish voice that spoke of permanence.

“She said he adopted his niece and she thinks of him like a father,” Cat says, head turned to study Ned’s profile as he reads, and she smiles when he sighs and folds the paper in defeat at the hands of the conversation she wants to have, setting it on his thigh before looking at her.

“You already told me. Is that what bothers you, that he has a child?”

“It’s not bothering me, it just, you know, it just seems like an awful lot of responsibility,” she says, and her husband smiles.

“For him? Yes, and I admire him already for stepping up to the plate. A man not even aware he’s got a niece suddenly has guardianship over her, and he takes it one step further and adopts her.”

“No, I know that, and you’re right, it _is_ commendable, but she’s just so  _young,_ Ned,” she says, and he laughs. The hand draped over the cap of her shoulder lifts to tug the pencil out of the makeshift bun at the back of her head, tossing it to the coffee table. Her hair tumbles down, free now so that he can wrap a lock of it around his index finger.

“She’s twenty four, Cat, a year older than you were when Robb was born,” he says. “And she loves kids, has wanted to work with them since she was in high school. That’s the entire reason she went down to Arizona in the first place,” and she nods and says  _I know_  because it’s true. She wonders if Sansa loves Sandor the way she loves Ned, is eager to see how they move around one another, if it is purely physical, if it is some young woman’s crush and an older man’s folly. Cat hopes it isn’t. She wants her children to be happy, to find love the way she has with their father, and it’s why this place feels like a rec center sometimes, with Jojen and Bran reading together or playing chess like little old men, their fingers brushing under the table, with Gendry and Arya breaking things just to try and put them back together again, with Rickon and Shireen giggling and tickling each other like children though they share enough longing looks to put on the cover of a thousand romance novels.

“Do you think they’re in love?” she asks finally, and Ned huffs a chuckle, tipping his head against hers. “Do you think he loves her?”

“Of course he loves her, Cat. It’s Sansa we’re talking about. I’m sure he fell for her almost as fast as I fell for you. How could he not?” He kisses her temple once, twice before she turns to kiss him back. It’s not as fevered and urgent as those very first kisses were but it’s better for it, comfortable and wise now, his lips a perfect fit and his tongue a trace against hers in the familiar path they have memorized over the years.  _Love,_  she thinks.  _I want love for all my children,_  and with Robb saving up to buy a diamond ring, with Rickon watching movies with Shireen, Arya moving her stuff into the studio apartment she and Gendry found, with Bran happier than he’s ever been since the accident, thanks to Jojen, she thinks Sansa bringing home her boyfriend is the final piece to the puzzle.

They sit together in silence, Ned’s fingers in her hair as they gaze at the growing dark outside, the front porch light bright enough to set the swirl of snowfall aglow, fat little spots of white that blow by the window, and his touch is a comfort and the scene outside is calming, and her eyes almost drowse closed when there is a loud, shuddering thump from upstairs and a long peal of feminine laughter.

“I thought it was getting a little too quiet,” Ned says conversationally, and Cat rolls her eyes at the antics of their youngest son, who is allowed to have his girlfriend in his room so long as his bedroom door stays open. She has half a mind to march up there and find out what’s going on but the greater part of her isn’t sure she wants to know, but then they are a sudden clatter down the stairs into the hall to the left. She and Ned turn as one in time to see Rickon leap off the staircase from the fifth step, the same as he’s been doing since he was six.  _That was only ten years ago, and here he’s dating a grown woman,_  she thinks with a frown, but what he lacks in age –  _and respect, and patience, and good grades –_ he seems to make up for in heart, because he holds his hand out and Shireen, several inches shorter than he, grabs it before jumping down after him. His exuberance is, and always has been, contagious, and Cat smiles despite herself.

“We’ll be back in a bit,” her baby boy says as he helps Shireen into her apple red down jacket with the faux fur trim, and then he’s shrugging into his own disheveled layer of hoodie over hoodie with Robb’s old pea coat on top of it all.

“Going for a smoke, huh?” Ned says dryly, and to his credit Rickon looks appalled at the suggestion.

“No way, dad, we’re going to go play in the snow,” he says, blue eyes wide, and if it weren’t for the freshly shorn mohawk flopped to one side of his head or the fact that the smell of stale cigarettes is noticeable even with the length of the living room between them, he’d be the picture of perfect innocence. Shireen slides a glance to Rickon, and the look on her face all but confirms his lie, but she’s not in the mood to argue, not with Sansa on her way, and so Cat just waves them off.

“It might be time to make him clean out the basement again, like you did for those tattoos of his,” she says blandly once they’ve shut the front door behind them. Cat gazes at her cuticles, and it’s not easy anymore to pull a fast one on Ned Stark, but he starts so sharply at her words she can’t help but grin and she draws away from the warmth of his side to look at him squarely.

“How did you—” he starts but Cat just shakes her head.

“A mother  _knows_ , Ned. Besides, he sleeps without a shirt, and I’ve been checking on him in the middle of the night, _every_ night, since he was a newborn. Plus Shireen’s got skin more colorful than a comic book, so it’s not hard to imagine he’s somehow figured out how to get them himself.”

“But why did you, why are you keeping silent about it? I told him you’d wring his neck over those things.” Ned is dumbfounded, and she smiles, patting his cheek affectionately.

“Because honestly, I think he’s just trying to express himself,” she says with a sigh, “and with as much trouble as he’s been these past few years, I don’t want to punish him for that. The only thing he did  _wrong_  was somehow managing to skirt around the law, but it’s already done.”

“So all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you’re okay with tattoos? You’re okay if I go get a big heart on my arm that says  _CAT_  on it?” and he’s laughing as she pinches his ribs, pulls her back against him with a grin. His chest is still firm beneath her hand when she presses her palm there, and the feel of his sweater reminds her of the football games they’d go to together in college, how his breath would puff and fog in the cold autumn air when he’d say her name or cry out in disappointment or joy at some sports move that Cat never understood.

“Don’t you dare,” she says with a smile, resting her head on that soft place where his chest meets his shoulder. “And I don’t know, I’m not keen on the idea, but I think I can get why people have them. They just want to tell the world about themselves, and given his track record I can’t say I’m surprised that he’s chosen _that_ way to inform the world about Rickon Stark.  It’s not like Robb or Sansa would, but it makes sense coming from him,” she says.

Ned makes a hum of agreement, and through the living room window Cat can see Rickon and Shireen, and she smiles with a shake of her head when she sees the black haired girl hurl a snowball at Rickon, and there is the faintest of shrieks they can hear through the snow and the window and Bran’s blues music when Rickon tackles her to the ground.  _Maybe we’re too quick to judge him,_  she thinks but then she’s rolling her eyes when they walk down the drive and there are two sparks, two blooms of hot orange light from the lighter in her son’s cupped hand, and she thinks she’s going to add shoveling the driveway to cleaning out the basement.

 

“Come on, kiss me,” Rickon says as he and Shireen smoke at the end of the driveway, huddled together in the twilight snowfall. “If they’re too far away to see us smoking then they’re too far away to see us kiss. And they  _know_  you’re my girlfriend. They know we’re gonna kiss,” he says, sucking in and breathing out a lungful of smoke as he looks at her, as he counts his lucky stars he gets to call a woman like Shireen his girlfriend. She’s got a beanie pulled over her head but there’s still a part of her shaved head exposed, the shorn hair a bristle under his fingers when he brushes them against her scalp to the thicket of hair at the nape of her neck, and Shireen sighs, eyes closing when he pulls her towards him with his finger hooked in one of the belt loops of her jeans.

“I’m trying to be respectful, dating their youngest son who is still in high school,” she murmurs, her feet a shushed shuffle in the few inches of snow on the driveway, coming to him willingly even though she argues against it, and he smiles when a flake falls on the black of her eyelashes.

“Kiss my cheek then,” he says, and when she opens her eyes she gives him a look he’s seen plenty of times before, from her, from his mother and his sisters, and it makes him grin as he shrugs. “Scout’s honor,” he says, flicking his cigarette butt to the ground, telling himself to pick it up before they go inside.

“You were never in the boy scouts,” she scoffs, though she winds her arms up around his neck after taking the final drag from her cigarette and stamping it out in the snow at their feet. He turns his head obediently to present his cheek to her but the moment her lips brush his skin he turns his head, catching the kiss meant for his cheek with his mouth, and there is the sound of amused admonishment in the back of her throat. 

“You ever gonna learn any new tricks,” she says between the touch of tongues and the press of lips, “or are you gonna keep doing the same move you used to get a kiss from me when we first met?” and her challenge is just one more reason to get him all worked up.

“I’ve got moves, Shir, just try me,” he murmurs, proud of himself when he feels the way she melts and lets him slide his cold hands under her jacket to touch her back, when he hears and feels the high, sharp gasp out of her at so icy a touch, but before he can think of taking this one step further there is the swing of headlights on the road, and the bright and blinding light splashes them like hot water, such a contrast to this cold dark world of hidden kisses and chilled fingertips.

“Busted,” Shireen says with a laugh when he wrenches his hands out from underneath her jacket, and they both beat a hasty retreat off of the driveway and into the deeper snow that covers the front lawn, and his big sister is a smudge of red hair and a waving hand as she pulls in the drive. Rickon steps back towards the car when it stops and the window rolls down, bends at the hips to stick his face in the open window to smile at his sister.

“What’s up, San Fran?” he grins, and he  _Oofs_  when she reaches out and snares him in a hug, and the inside of the car is so warm Rickon feels tingles on his skin from the contrast. The huge hulk of a man in the passenger seat gives him a nod when he looks up over his sister’s shoulder, and Rickon’s eyebrows lift as he nods by way of response. He called him a badass when he saw the picture of his sister’s boyfriend, but this Sandor guy is hardcore in person, long hair and scars and a blue plaid coat to match the red one his sister wears.  _He looks like a fuckin’ cowboy,_  Rickon thinks as his sister kisses his cheek and ruffles his hair.

“This is Sandor and there’s Genna,” she whispers, and then Rickon sees the kid in the back seat, cheek resting on her shoulder as she sleeps. He has known about this little girl, has known she’s Sandor’s daughter or niece or both or whatever, has been prepped with the information that they’re dating now and have been a while, that they live together the way Arya and Gendry are about to. But to see Sansa drive up with this man and this child, with their matching plaid and the heat of the inside of the car, to hear her hushed voice and see Sandor’s eyes on him, serious and dark and so much more real than a picture on an iPhone, it is all a thrill and shock to him. It is a slice of her life down there, this new world she has moved to and helped build with this man; he’s young, yeah, but Rickon can tell the difference here, between the Sansa he’s always known and the Sansa sitting in an idling car right here with him.

“What’s up, man,” Rickon says, voice as hushed as his sister’s, and then he stretches a hand behind him, waving until he feels Shireen, can drag her forward with a hand in the pocket of her puffy coat. “This is Shireen,” he says, and he hopes they can see each other clearly, because it’s fucking uncanny, these two individuals with scarred up left cheeks, because Sandor regards him with the same wild animal wariness that Shireen had before he tricked her into kissing him in an alley at midnight on spring break.

“Hey,” she says, hunching over so that her face is next to Rickon’s, nodding to Sansa with a smile before holding her hand out towards Sandor, and Ric grins when Sandor looks at her with surprise. But there’s a handshake and introduction there, and then there’s the whine of a tired little girl when she wakes up and complains about how cold it is. He and Shireen stand up and step back so the car can crunch the snow beneath its tires as it rolls up to the house.

“What’s with you Starks and people with fucked up faces?” Shireen says as they follow the car back to the house, hands clasped inside the pocket of her coat, and Rickon squeezes her fingers with his to shut her up.

“I guess Sansa and I just have really good taste,” he says, and she tells him to quit it, shoves him with her shoulder, and he is strut and swagger because of her, withdraws his hand from her pocket so he can sling his arm across her shoulders and pull her into him, marvels at his luck in getting her phone number and her kiss and her arms around him, in gaining the courage to finally introduce her to his family.

 

“Holy shit,” Bran’s mother says before she has time to collect herself and arm herself with more than pure, unadulterated shock, and he throws his head back and laughs. They are a cluster of four at the side door that leads from the kitchen to the driveway, he and his parents, Jojen with his hands on Bran’s shoulders as he stands behind his wheelchair, all staring through the glass door into the driveway where Sandor Clegane has unfolded himself from the car, a towering man of brawn and scars in one moment and a conflicting image of tenderness the next when he bends down and pulls out a tired little girl, and he is a cradle of arms and plaid as she slumps into him.

“Holy shit what,” his little brother says behind him, riding a gust of cold air and older woman as he and Shireen walk in from the front door to the kitchen to stand behind the rest of them.

“I meant um,” Cat says, waving her hand in a circle as she tries to find better words, words that fit her idea of what a sixteen year old should hear though they all know Rickon has said and done worse things than any of them there in that kitchen. “I mean, you know, he’s just so  _big_ ,” she says, and now they’re all laughing, even their father, but when they hear the slams of two doors being shut they scatter like kitchen mice at midnight when the lights are flicked on. Bran spins his chair around and with a single well-practiced solid thrust, coasts from the side door all the way to the table where he shoves aside a chair to look like he meant to be there this whole time.

It’s a happy chaotic commotion when Sansa opens the door, walking in with a man so tall he ducks to enter the room, his arms full of a little girl with hair as black as his and almost as long, snowflakes studding her tumble of curls like stars in a night sky. If it weren’t for her and her little arms wound so tight around his neck he’d look menacing, towering over everyone and especially Bran, down here in his chair as he is. And then there is the matter of the scars on his face. There is a brief moment of silence like a deep breath being sucked in and held, and then everyone begins to talk at once, Rickon and Jojen mentioning the increasing intensity of the snowstorm as Ned and Cat step forward, the former to shake Sandor’s hand, who easily hoists his little girl to one side with one arm to do so, and the latter to embrace her daughter.

“Pleasure to meet you,” their father says, and Sandor returns the sentiment, his voice deep and rough and perfectly suited to him. He’s serious, gruff but polite as he shakes everyone’s hand, and he knows everyone’s names, likely ticking them off of a mental checklist because there are so many of them, even with two siblings out of the house.

“You must be Bran,” Sandor says, and Bran is relieved to see an absolute lack of sympathy in his gray eyes, just a frank and honest look, but then if anyone is going to understand he guesses it would be him, and so Bran immediately dismisses the scars on Sandor’s face, as much from camaraderie as from gratitude.  _This is a man who doesn’t bullshit, who doesn’t dole out false pity,_  he thinks, and after three years of clucked tongues and shakes of the head, of girls going  _Awww_  and guys going  _That sucks, man, but does your dick still work_ , the realization is a satisfying one, and he instantly likes him, tries to make his handshake as firm as the one Sandor offers him.

“We’ve got your room set up for you,” Cat says to Sansa with a smile, and then with an embarrassed sort of look to Sandor she adds “you know, for you two and Genna,” and he huffs a laugh and nods.

“Sweet, does that mean Shireen can sleep over in my room too?” Rickon grins, receiving glares from both his mother and his mortified girlfriend, but it’s enough to break the ice, and the rest of them laugh.

 Their mother approaches Genna with a smile and a hand on the little girl’s back. “Hi, Genna. My name is Cat, like a kitty,” and though the girl is clearly tired and overwhelmed and shy right now, when their mom meows Genna smiles and slides a look over her way, and in a matter of moments she’s lifting her head to tell Cat all about the plane ride and how her ears popped, how it’s only been twice that’s she’s flown, the first time to get her daddy and the flight they took to get here, and she asks Cat if she got her daddy on an airplane too, and their mother laughs.

They’re all standing in a cluster by the table save for him and Rickon, who’s sitting irreverently on the counter, and Ned asks Sandor about his line of work and there is an instant spark between them, a connection that is instantaneous and sincere as the two men discuss trees and the earth, forests and seedlings. Genna wriggles free from her father’s embrace and is set down, and Bran watches with curious amusement as she immediately seeks out Sansa.  _She looks like a mother,_  he thinks as she absentmindedly strokes the little girl’s hair while talking with Cat, her fingers a drift through the black that reminds him of how his mother would comb his own hair with her fingers whenever he was sick and draped in her lap.

He remembers Sansa in middle school crying over not getting to go to a Vanessa Carlton concert, remembers the high school obsession with fairy tales and The Nutcracker, and now here she stands with this man Sandor and his daughter, and she  _fits_  them. And it’s not just the matching jackets and cowboy boots, either; it is the peace between all three of them, the smile on her face, soft and warm like flannel, when Sandor tells her he’ll be right back before he follows their dad to his office because  _I’ve got this succulent plant a guy from the office gave me, and I think I’m killing it. Mind taking a look?_ Sandor excuses himself but Bran can see clear as day that really, he’s excusing himself from Sansa and none of the others. There’s devotion there in his eyes and in the trail of his fingertips down her forearm, the closest he can get to PDA here in front of her family, as subtle a gesture as anything though here at Bran’s lower eye level he sees everything. There’s the twitch of Sansa’s hand and the flick of her wrist to give him her palm, to close her fingers over his in a silent plea to never leave her for long. It makes him smile, and when Jojen’s hand rests lightly on his shoulder Bran allows himself to sink into the feeling, into the comfort such a small and simple thing provides, he allows himself to be as loved as his sister clearly is.

 

“Does he always look at you like that?” Arya asks as they drink wine together while washing dishes, Sandor having gone upstairs to put Genna to bed, Rickon and Shireen smoking out front where they think they’re being so sneaky. Gendry is with everyone else watching  _Elf_  in the den, and now she can finally have a private conversation with her sister about the man she’s brought home.

“Like what,” Sansa asks lightly, picking up her glass with a soapy hand, and she gazes evenly at Arya over the rim while she drinks.

“Like a piece of candy he can’t get enough of.” Arya grins when her sister laughs, and she thinks maybe Sansa will ignore her or change the subject, but she is thrilled when her big sister shuts off the water and leans in to where she’s sitting on the counter drying dishes.

“ _Yes_ ,” she says with raised eyebrows and a sultry sort of emphasis, and now they’re both laughing, and it’s  _good_  to see Sansa like this, to see her around a man who is so beside himself with love that it’s almost nauseating.

“You two are pretty serious then, huh? Living together, raising a kid together,” she says, pouring herself another glass of white wine, feet kicking the cabinets as she regards her big sister. Sansa smiles down to her hands as she dries them, and there is a look on her face that makes Arya think of things like sweaters and hot chocolate, of bubble baths and steam on the mirror, warm things of comfort and luxury, because being in love is both of those things.

“Yeah,” her sister says, looking up with a smile. “I’m more serious about him, about us, than I’ve ever been in my entire life,” she says, and Arya smiles back to hear it. She thinks of Gendry telling her he loved her the first time, thinks about eloping and honeymooning in Seattle when everyone just thought they went there apartment hunting, and she’s  _happy_ for her sister because what she has with Gendry is what she wants for her whole family, for the whole world on those days she doesn’t hate everybody.

“Well, he’s obviously pretty serious too,” she says, hopping off the counter after the last dish is dried, and she and Sansa take their wine into the living room to watch the snow fall and confess their hearts to one another.

“You think so?” She is a shy smile and a dip of her head as she looks into her wine glass, a happy sigh and a gaze off into nothing when Arya nods.

“I know so. I bet you two idiots will be married within a year,” Arya says, and Sansa giggles like a school girl.

“Well what about you guys? You and Gendry have been together for like four or five years. Think he’s going to put a ring on it anytime soon? Our friends Bronn and Margie didn’t get married until _sixteen_ _years_ after they met, don’t let Gendry stall  _that_  long,” she says with a grin, and Arya drains her glass in one gulp.

“Yeah, so about that,” she says.

 

““He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he dotes on our daughter as much as he dotes on his own,” Ned says around his toothbrush when his wife asks his opinion of Sandor Clegane. They stand side by side in their master bathroom as he brushes his teeth while she takes out her contacts. She never believes him when he says she looks like she did back in college with her black framed glasses, but it’s step back in time every night for him, and he’s looking at her reflection when she catches him. He’s a foamy mint green grin. “I like him, I really do.”

“Good,” Cat says. “I do too. Once you get over the, you know,” she says, waving a hand to her face, and Ned agrees with a sigh before spitting out his toothpaste and rinsing his mouth. He flicks off the bathroom line as they file out, and she tells him Sansa said they were from a camping accident, and they climb in bed together, Cat a sprawl of long legs and a tumble of hair beside him.

“Well it certainly doesn’t seem to bother Sansa, and that little girl of his sure doesn’t care.” And it’s true. Genna reminds him of Arya when she was little, a constant wiggle and squirm, a never-ending presence in your face. She sat on her father’s lap and clunked her forehead to his while he tried to eat dinner, squeezed him in a hug so tight around the neck he turned red, her cheek pressed to his scars. Sansa sat at his left and gazed at him with the rapturous look of a young woman head over heels in love, regardless of the affliction that faced her. He could be mistaken but it almost seemed to Ned that she _liked_ the scars, but then again stranger things have happened.

“It’s clear they really love each other,” Cat says with a yawn, and he flicks off the lamp on his nightstand, letting the darkness drape over them like another blanket, closes his eyes with the comfort of his wife by his side and his pillow beneath his head. “I think they’re the real McCoy. We’ve got lucky kids, Ned. Everyone seems to have found their match, even the younger two,” and he smiles in the dark before kissing her forehead because it’s a nice thought, imagining his children as happy and lucky in life and love as he has been, ever since he saw Catelyn Tully sauntering across campus listening to her Walkman, ever since she dropped her books and he ran over to help the pretty girl with the glasses pick them up.

  

It’s not nearly as nerve wracking as he imagined it, coming into a house full of Starks, family he’s heard so much about but could never quite imagine, even after she showed him pictures. Everyone is far livelier than a simple picture could express, and while he’s no longer nervous it’s still overwhelming to be pulled in so many directions, to be awash in so many distinctive personalities. They had a hearty dinner after he took their suitcases upstairs, huge steaming bowls of chili that were devoured by the spoonsful as the conversation flowed without so much as a single ebb, but that’s likely due to the sheer number of them. With Arya and her boyfriend Gendry arriving shortly after he and Sansa did they were eleven of them around the massive dining room table, and while everyone asked him about himself, while he answered as well as he could there was just as much chatter about the mundane between themselves.

Rickon asked to see the tree tattoo that inspired his sister’s artwork, and he felt like an idiot standing in the kid’s room, which seemed to be made up entirely of rock band and movie posters, with his shirt hiked up to his armpits as Rickon nodded his approval. Luckily he did not ask about the little bird and instead launched into passionate discussion about his own ink on his arms, but before he could get much further than the first sleeve Sandor was dragged out of the room by Arya who wanted to see if Gendry could beat Sandor at arm wrestling.

He couldn’t.

Genna was a soft snore between them in her bed that night despite the little cot that was set up in the corner for her, and he figured her mother is pretty clever because there’s no better way to ensure nothing physical will happen than sleeping with a four year old child.  They slept bundled up together in pale blue bedding and Christmas lights wound around her headboard and when she finally kissed him goodnight and unplugged the lights he saw glow in the dark star stickers plastered all over her ceiling, and he dreamed of a red haired girl with stars on her fingers, stars in her hair, stars caught in the fans of her lashes like flakes of snow.

“I was hoping to have a word with the two of you,” Sandor says the next morning when he finds her parents in the den, having excused himself from playing with Sansa and Genna in the snow under the pretense of being thirsty. It’s a classic scene here, with a fire in the fireplace and a Christmas tree in the corner, a scatter of wrapped gifts already under the tree. They are both reading books on the sofa, and they look up in unison as he stands in the door like a nervous teenager with his heart pounding like a drum where it has lodged itself in his throat. Ned and Cat exchange a look and  _It’s written clear across my forehead, isn’t it,_  because now they’re closing their books with identical little smiles, though if he’s not mistaken Ned’s seems a little sad.  _Losing his daughter,_  he thinks, tamping down the dread he feels simply at the idea of Genna  _dating,_  let alone getting married.

“I was thinking you might,” Ned says, and he gestures with his mug to one of the chairs on the other side of the coffee table. Sandor arms himself with his love, wears it like armor on this strange battlefield, a place he’s never been before and only plans to visit this one time. He crosses the room and takes the offered chair, sits back before immediately leaning forward, his forearms braced against his thighs. Ned and Cat Stark are silent and polite; she is hands clasped in her lap while he is an arm stretched out across the back of the sofa, they are self-assuredness and calm. Sandor is _nerves_. Jangled and stretched, bunched and humming from the tension, from the thick energy like static electricity here in this moment where he has yet to speak. He could turn back now, if he wanted. He could drop it and leave it lying there on the floor, the desperate moment of a terrified man, if he wanted.

He wants no such thing.

“I’m in love with your daughter and I have been for a long, long time.  _We’ve_  been in love with her, Genna and me, and I want, I would like, I’m hoping for your blessing to ask Sansa to marry me. I promise you I’ll take care of her and I’ll be as good a husband I can, because I can’t stand the thought of living life without her,” he says, and it comes out in a rush, rapid waters tumbling over rocks, though he stops himself before he goes on, before he confesses everything, how she lights him up, how it was a world of darkness before she came in, a lick of red star-flame against the black sky of his heart, how he sees his future when he sees her with Genna, how acute the pain is when he remembers how sharp and biting his loneliness was before she came into his life.

Cat glances at her husband with a smile, and he’s nodding, Sansa’s father, nodding his head in a gesture that makes Sandor think  _Yes,_ wondering if that’s the word he’ll hear when he asks her in a few minutes.

“Of course you have our blessing,” Ned says, and they all three of them stand up as one, and he shakes Ned’s hand with, he’s happy to see, fingers that do not tremble, and then Cat is hugging him and kissing him on his good cheek, welcoming him to the family. _What a strange feeling it is, to be welcomed to a family,_ for the little world he made for himself and for Genna, and later for Sansa, can be instantly expanded, blown apart and remade to include this full house of Starks. _What a strange feeling, to_ belong _somewhere._

“I think it’s time you tell  _her_  all of that now, instead of wasting your romance on us,” she says with a smile, and there are tears in her eyes that prick Sandor in the heart with their sincerity and kindness. He nods at her, takes a step back and nearly plows into the chair, apologizes before turning to leave, shrugging back into the blue plaid coat he got to replace the red one Sansa took for herself once the seasons turned, the coat he’ll find her curled up and sleeping in with her Kindle in her lap, the coat that smells more of her now than it does him, though she swears the opposite is true.

The sky outside is pale gray, the color of Genna’s eyes, but the light is no less brilliant for the lack of sun, and it is like stepping out into a world of white. Every surface is blanketed with snow, at least a foot of it by now with the promise of more in every flake that falls around them. The air rings with the sounds of laughter and little girl shrieks and squeals, and he follows the sounds around the side of the house where they are making snow angels, their heads towards him so they cannot see him. Her hair is a splash of red on the white of snow, and his fingers tingle with the memory of how it feels to sift through it, to lift it just to watch it fall. He stands about twenty yards away and watches them with his hands in his pockets, the pearl ring so small he can’t even fit it on his pinky, and it’s his future he looks at, his future he hears in every squawk of his kid’s happy voice, in how breathless Sansa is from laughing at their antics and play.

“Genna,” he calls out when she pops up to tackle Sansa, and he squats down as she slogs like a long legged puppy through the deep snow, and Sansa sits up before getting to her feet, dusting the snow off her ass and the backs of her legs, and she’s walking their way, slow and out of breath from their play, and quickly he pulls out the ring and holds it out to his daughter. “I want you to give that to Sansa, sweetheart. Go on and give it to her, and ask if she’ll be ours, okay?”

“Okay!” she shouts, and he watches her trot back to the woman he loves with an engagement ring in her little mitten, and he prays to every God under the sun that Genna doesn’t drop the damned thing. Sansa bends at the waist when Genna lifts her hand and says  _Daddy wants you to be ours_ , and even from this far away he can hear her gasp, and she rips off her left glove and throws it over her shoulder as she takes the ring from Genna and runs to him.

Sandor rises to his feet as she approaches, and it is  _everything_  he has ever wanted, the sight of her coming for him, coming to claim him as hers with Genna laughing and running in her wake. She is long legs and long stride, is tall enough to run through the snow with ease and grace, and she flings herself into his arms, naked hand clenched into a fist around the biggest thing he’s bought her for Christmas.

“Yes,” she says, half a laugh and half a sob in his ear, and it’s a word as soft and sweet as a curled up white feather, here in this white world of winter, this world of Sansa’s. “Oh my God, yes, yes, yes. I’m yours, I’m both of yours, forever, Sandor,” she says, “but you’ve got to be the one to put it on me. I’ve waited a long time for this and I want to watch you do it,” she says breathlessly, and he laughs when he sets her down, grins when she presents him with her outstretched hand, palm to the sky with that dainty little ring sitting in it like an egg in a nest, all delicate silver wire twisted around a pearl the faintest shade of lavender.

“Marry me,” he says, pushing the ring over the knuckles of her left ring finger until it comes to rest where it will live for the rest of their lives.

“Yes,” she says again, and it’s the loveliest word he knows because his life has been reduced to it, his world is now three letters that make up this beautiful word that means he will always have her, will always have this precious knowledge that they are the ones for each other. She’s a hop back into his arms, her weight a welcome one to his forearms upon which she sits, legs around his waist where they fit so well. Sandor brushes her hair from her face and kisses her here under this iron gray sky, and it’s a different one from the endless blue sky he’s used to, but they’ll be back there soon enough, and in the end it doesn’t really matter, because he’s got her now, because he’s as much in her arms as she’s in his, because she so completely has him.

He’s home.


End file.
